


Unfortunate Son

by Truth



Category: James Asher Vampire Series - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Aunt Louise is the Worst, Emotional Relationships, Fake Character Death, Influenza, It is 1918 After All, Kidnapping, Lionel Grippen isn't Much Better, Lots of Random Death, Other, Prisoner of War, Transatlantic Voyages, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: The influenza season of 1917-1918 which came to be known as the Spanish Flu had an effect which went unaddressed by the history books.  James Asher would've been happy to go the rest of his life without learning about that effect first hand.
Relationships: James Asher/Lydia Asher/Simon Ysidro
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Unfortunate Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maat_seshat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maat_seshat/gifts).



> I had not read past the first two books, had not actually been aware there were more than two books in this, one of my favorite series since 'Those Who Hunt the Night' was published. 
> 
> When I was matched to this request, I immediately had to send away for six more books. What a hardship! One of my favorite series is suddenly four times longer and I have to read all of the newer books! However, I don't live in America, and it took a little while to get them all.
> 
> I regret nothing.

May 23, 1918  
Schenectady, NY

 _  
Jamie,  
_ _  
Aunt Louise has increased her campaign to take control of Miranda’s upbringing. Her staunch insistence that young girls should avoid any form of mental stimulus that does not involve etiquette or mode of dress has evolved, if I may use that term for such an unwelcome and unsupported thought, into a desire to ship Miranda away to boarding school immediately, despite her age. Why, you may ask? In order to ‘prevent her tender mind from absorbing any more of these foolish and destructive ideas her mother seems to cherish about a woman’s place in the world’. She went so far as to make inquiries as to schools that would take someone of Miranda’s age.  
_ _  
In related news, you will note my new address. While Aunt Louise may decry my abilities as a mother (despite never having had any children herself), she will not pursue me outside the bounds of polite society. I left no forwarding address, and Natalia is receiving my mail and sending it on to me here.  
_ _  
I also left behind the odious Mrs. Frush, as she is a devoted disciple of Aunt Louise’s theories on the raising of young girls. Her attitudes were beginning to effect Miranda, and I decided it would be for the best to terminate our association. I doubt it will be difficult to replace her with someone far more suitable._

_Miranda has fully recovered from her bout of influenza. While it was most unpleasant, it at least passed the most dangerous stages before I contracted it myself. My own case was mild, but it allowed me the pretense of removing to the country to recover. I simply packed all of our possessions and took them along._

_According to Natalia, it took Aunt Louise almost a week to notice that our things were gone, and another to realize I had no intent of returning. I am certain that she will decry my behavior to any and all who will listen, but that weighs less on my mind than allowing her to convince Miranda that her mind and imagination are things to be denied and ashamed of._

_I am constantly watching the shipping schedules and the news. While currently an exercise in futility, I am counting the days until it is deemed safe to travel back to England. Not that there is much travel possible at the moment, nor do I dispute the decision. I do not wish to encounter any more U-Boats, no matter the distance._

_Almost two years have passed since I have heard your voice. I am glad that you are back in England, despite the difficulties with rationing and illness. According to the news Captain Palfrey has been sharing with me (heaven knows where he’s getting his information) illness amongst the soldiers involved at the front has increased to a worrying degree. Please keep yourself safe._

_I love you, and will continue to count the days._

_L  
_

**

The mill had been renovated, with sleeping quarters that weren’t obscenely crowded, and there was ample space for exercising, and even a canteen. The buildings had not seen service, or very little, before their renovation, but three years had put a certain amount of wear and tear on everything. There were personal touches here and there, sparse, but visible.

Nothing could make it less the prison it so obviously was.

Hauptmann Josef von Rabewasser, while a useful man, would have no place at all in a prisoner of war camp meant for enlisted men. Thus, that identity had been shed in favour of Paul Greuer, a common soldier and unwilling occupant of the prisoner of war camp in Leigh for two weeks. Captured, so it was reported, during a skirmish after the Second Battle of the Marne, Greuer was a quiet man, pleasant company to the other prisoners, and never gave the guards any trouble.

The strangeness of being on British soil, surrounded by German soldiers and officers, being able to see _home_ through the fences, could not be properly put into words. Being in the service of the British Crown, while surrounded by those same soldiers and officers, did not allow those words to be formulated properly in the privacy of the imagination, much less be given actual voice.

Hopefully his stay behind the barbed wire fences would be short.

‘Home’ was a small town in Prussia and Britain was a not a country with which Paul Greuer had much familiarity. However, prison was prison, and James Asher had seen the inside of a startling variety, differentiated only by who was holding the keys, and which name he answered to at the time.

Boredom was the enemy, as powerful and pervasive as any company of advancing soldiers, and just as likely to end your life. Asher was used to this sort of boredom, creeping in as familiarity with his companions and his environment began to wear at the need to keep alert. Recognition of this particular enemy unfortunately did not lend him any additional ammunition to keep it at bay.

Surrounded by German prisoners of war, forced to keep to their schedule, always listening, always aware of who he was supposed to be as opposed to he actually was - it was wearing. The cold of early winter, the constant threat of illness, and the discomfort of being a prisoner was in no way alleviated by the knowledge that for him, at least, there would be a way out.

“- miss her so much. She promised we’d marry, after the war.”

“- letter from my mother. Half the village is sick, and two of my cousins have died -”

“- at the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven. He’s been working there for almost a year -”

James tuned into the conversation between the two prisoners scrubbing potatoes behind him at the mention of the Imperial shipyard, his weariness temporarily pushed aside.

He was in Britain. This is where Lydia would return, though he could not think on that now. She and Miranda were far safer where they were - and Paul Greuer had no wife, no child. His life was his service to the Kaiser, and the hopes of eventually retiring to a small farm.

With that firmly in mind, he wandered over to the potato-peelers. “Need a hand?”

**

The small sitting room had filmy white curtains at the windows. There were lamps on the small desk and the little table beside the sofa. A large clock sat on the fireplace mantle, between a pair of china shepherdesses. The wooden floors had been polished to a high shine, and covered with soft, pretty rugs. The furnishings were sparse, and somewhat lacking in personality, but they were pretty enough. Everything was upholstered in pale greens and frosty blues. Tea waited on a small cart along with Miranda’s Mrs. Marigold and a small, mostly broken, posy of wildflowers. 

“Really, Lydia. This is somewhat extreme, even given the circumstances.” 

Lydia glanced up from her tea, attention drawn from Miranda’s attempts to stealthily help herself to another biscuit. “Extreme?”

“This is a farmhouse, Lydia.” Her Former Illustrious Highness, the Princess Gromyko, took in her surroundings with raised eyebrows. “In the middle of _nowhere_.”

“Hardly nowhere, Natalia,” Lydia said. “The train will take me to Albany or New York City in a matter of hours.” She watched as Miranda offered her purloined biscuit to Madame la Duchesse, where the small dog lay at Natalia’s feet.

“Hours, Lydia. _Hours_.” Natalia shuddered, although she was smiling. “I am teasing, of course. This is simply more rural than I was expecting.” She stretched out one hand to gently pat the small sofa she was seated on. “Not that it is not comfortable in its own way, but when you decided to flee your managing aunt, I was thinking more of Boston.”

“Aunt Louise might find an excuse to travel to Boston. I can’t see her finding Schenectady to her exacting tastes. I did not choose it for the madding, social whirl,” Lydia said. She adjusted the skirt of her dress, hoping not to catch the lace trimmed hem on her shoes.

“It certainly has little enough to recommend it on those terms,” Natalia said. “I practically required a native guide to find you myself, and I already had the address.”

“There are social events here,” Lydia assured her. “Even a few spiritualists who have regular events. I have several invitations already, possibly thanks to the rental agent.”

It might be a farmhouse but it was beautifully appointed and the farming was handled by other people, specifically to appeal to those who wanted to ‘get away from it all’ without actually giving any of it up. The invitations had been waiting when Lydia, Miranda, and Ellen arrived, along with a letter of welcome from the Junior League.

“I have brought you a letter,” Natalia told her, watching indulgently as Monsieur le Duc leaned into Miranda, looking for a biscuit of his own. “Several, actually, but only one that matters.”

“From Papa?” Miranda looked up, face brightening. At her distraction, Monsieur le Duc went for the last piece of biscuit still in her hand, only to be foiled by Madame la Duchesse, who had the same idea. Miranda didn’t notice, attention riveted on the small packet of letters Natalia had produced from her purse.

“From your father, yes.” Natalia smiled at the small, friendly squabble taking place between her precious dogs. “And a handful of others.” She extended the packet to Lydia, who took them, peering near-sightedly as she flipped through the envelopes in search of James’ familiar hand-writing.

Her fingers hesitated at a slim envelope with delicate, spidery script. She couldn’t actually read her name or the address without her spectacles, but she could recognize the shape of the writing; would always recognize it. She slipped it to the bottom of the stack, concentrating instead on the envelope with her name twice the size of the address.

James knew she would want to know it was his letter, and also that she would not want to wear her spectacles for an audience. Even when that audience was someone she had grown to call a dear friend. The thoughtfulness of it made her smile, even as her heart ached at the distance between them.

“Papa?” Miranda asked, on her feet and leaning against her mother’s side.

“We’ll read it together,” Lydia assured her. “Tonight.”

Miranda hummed happily. “Is he home yet? 

“We’ll find out after our dinner.” 

“Mail thus delivered, and a paucity of entertainment to be had in the environs, I suppose we shall have to make our own entertainment. Does your Ellen know how to play Bridge? Tania does not, and it is the only card game Mademoiselle Ossolinska will admit to knowing.” There was a twinkle in Natalia’s eye. “I suspect she feels even that is pushing the bounds of propriety, but as it is so socially acceptable, she will usually indulge.”

“Can we play Snap?” Miranda asked. 

“Certainly we can,” Natalia said. “It’s a game I’m very fond of, for all that Mademoiselle Ossolinska feels it damaging to my dignity.”

Lydia left them to their lively discussion of the merits of various childish card games, as she searched for the cards. Somewhere deep within, she cherished Miranda’s happiness with her new friend, and her childish willingness to engage openly with her. Aunt Louise would be having palpitations at Miranda’s addressing a Princess (one without an Empire, but that had nothing to do with breeding, in Aunt Louise’s opinion) in the first place, as little girls should be seen and not heard. The informality of it, and the audacity of Miranda asking Natalia to entertain her?

Bearing a small but entirely delighted smile at Aunt Louise’s imagined reaction, Lydia found the cards and brought them to her daughter.

She shoved all thoughts of her letter, ‘letters’, a traitorous part of her heart insisted, aside to be thought about later.

**

Twice a week, during exercise, the prisoners of war received their mail. Paul Greuer always dutifully wrote to his aunt, and usually received two or three letters in return. 

Those letters contained information, instructions, and news of a small town in Saxony, concealed within and peppered by stories about his aunt’s dogs, and her friends at church. They made for fairly entertaining reading, despite the hidden content. Asher sometimes wondered who was responsible for writing them, and if they knew how much he appreciated the levity and the minutiae of small town gossip.

He carefully did not wish that those letters were from Lydia. He knew that she would write him regularly, and those letters would be waiting for him when he finally left Leigh. He dreamed of her, sometimes. Not the strange, tightly focused dreams that had become familiar since Asher became aware of those who hunt the night. No, these dreams were peaceful. Fond memories of waking up on a cool spring morning, one arm around a warm, sleeping Lydia, not in any way spoiled by the bit of red hair tickling his nose. The remembered peace found in a small, warm form in his lap, leaning against him as she was lulled to sleep by a bedtime fairy tale. He dreamed of his family.

Occasionally, he dreamed of someone else.

Those dreams were, as Lydia herself put it, ‘Just a dream about a person who is (or was) a part of my life.’.

That he had those dreams at all was disturbing enough. Finding them holding the same tone as those of Lydia and Miranda was somehow worse. Don Simon Xavier Christian Morado de la Cadena-Ysidro was a many thousand time murderer, a vampire, a monster he had sworn to kill on sight.

Not that the offer, entirely honest and with experience to back it up, had impressed the vampire much. He’d at least given Asher the courtesy of taking the threat seriously. In St. Petersburg, Don Simon had been helpless and entirely at Asher’s mercy, yet rose from his slumber entirely without injury. That was, perhaps, one of the reasons why Don Simon didn’t seem to feel in any particular danger. Or that the risk was worthwhile.

The other reason was Lydia.

Asher couldn’t think about that. Not here, not now, not while Lydia was an ocean away and still within easy reach of that same vampire. The vampire he’d asked to watch over her.

‘Till the end of my days.’

Asher thrust it out of his mind, concentrating instead on Paul’s aunt and her latest tale of rivalry with the ladies of the altar guild.

It was far less concerning than contemplating the fact that he’d now welcome the dreams he’d once regarded as manipulative, and a deep and painful invasion of privacy. 

He hadn’t seen Lydia in almost two years. He hadn’t heard from Don Simon in almost a year. His life was entirely consumed by the war. He was Abroad, even here in London.

He tried very hard not to think about what it meant, that he’d seek comfort in the invasion of his dreams.

**

The letter from James was short, stitched together by the Department from his reports to them. Lydia knew better than to expect more. He’d warned her in his last real letter that he wouldn’t be able to write much or openly, and everything he wrote would go through several censors. Still, they were his words, and he spoke of how much he loved her, and sent encouragement to Miranda.

It would be the last letter she received by way of Natalia. Flattering as it was to have her husband’s letters hand-delivered by a former Russian Princess, she was not willing to wait for whatever word she might receive about James to fit into Natalia’s travel schedule. She had contacted the War Office and made certain they knew where to reach her, as her husband’s next of kin.

The letters might be bare of detail, but she still wanted them as quickly and as often as possible.

She could tell by the vague generalities that he was not receiving her letters, not that she’d expected he would. He hadn’t told her what his new assignment was, merely that he would be somewhat isolated.

Lydia still cherished the letters, infrequent and stripped of context. They held his love for her, and she knew that Miranda delighted in her father’s letters. It should disturb her how accustomed her daughter was to the absence of her parents. She resolved again to spend as much time as she could with Miranda.

She knew, more than most, how easy it would be to lose her - or for Miranda to lose her parents in turn. She would cherish her daughter while she could. Life was too short for her to allow Miranda to be bound by the expectations of the Aunt Louises and Mrs. Frusks of the world.

Lydia carefully placed James’ letter into one of the drawers of her desk. Miranda had dropped off to sleep almost an hour ago, still talking about what they’d do when reunited with her father. Lydia doubted they’d find a conveniently placed circus in Oxford at the exact moment when they returned to James, but it had been entertaining to listen to Miranda’s plans.

‘Was I ever so imaginative?’ She didn’t think so. But then, her father hadn’t encouraged such flights of fancy.

Sighing softly, she went through the remaining letters, discarding those that were obviously invitations to events she was no longer in New York City to attend. Eventually, she was left with the final missive, addressed in that familiar, old-fashioned hand.

Once, she would have hesitated before opening it. The knowledge that the sender was dead, had been for centuries, sustained only by the lives (deaths) of others, would have made her reluctant. Knowing also that she loved him, not as she loved James but loved all the same, would have made her unhappy and even more unlikely to want the message within.

Despite all that, she would have opened it.

Now? Now, things were different. Not necessarily better, though her moral quandaries had shifted their focus. Just different.

Lydia took her letter opener and sliced open the envelope.

 _Mistress_. _Cochran was a braggart, with loose lips when in his cups. I have sensed no others of my kind here, but there are those who seek my place of rest. Be wary. Ever your servant. Ysidro.  
_

Calmly, Lydia placed the letter on her desk.

Don Simon would not be mistaken about such a thing. Vampires, she knew well, may be forced to sleep during the daylight hours, but that did not mean they were unaware. They knew those who attempted to hunt them. The vampires hunted in turn by tracing the heartbeats and footsteps of those who passed their resting places more than once, or looked too often and too closely.

Captain Palfrey, while able enough in most ways, was not blessed with an abundance of subtlety, or quickness of wit. Don Simon had enough for them both, thankfully, but Palfrey wasn’t the person Lydia would’ve chosen to make responsible for the vampire’s safety during the day.

Nor would she risk Miranda by returning to New York City.

She placed the slip of paper back into the envelope and tucked it into her desk beside James’ latest. Someone was hunting vampires here in the United States of America, a place where there did not appear to be any vampires to hunt. Or they were hunting Don Simon specifically, whatever he was now.

In either case, it was not something she could simply allow to happen. Decision made, it then became a matter of options.

Lydia pulled out a clean piece of paper, thought of her daughter peacefully slumbering upstairs, and began to make a list.

**

Despite lights out and a strict curfew, a prison was never truly silent. Snoring, conversation in hushed voices, the footsteps of patrolling guards - even the sounds of the city itself were audible to the prisoners.

Silence woke Asher, or at least disturbed his slumber. Years of stealing sleep when he could, staying alert to the slightest change in his surroundings, had left their mark. When the rough breathing of Johann in the next cot suddenly evened out, Asher stirred.

“Get up,” a deep voice advised him. “Save ‘s both some time.”

That particular voice, familiar as it was, distinctive in the flatness of its English, caused a surge of anger and adrenaline. Asher sat bolt upright, a snarl on his face. “What are you doing here, Grippen?”

The broad, fleshy features of the Master of London were visible enough. True darkness never fell within the mill-turned-prisoner of war camp. The guards liked to have at least a vague idea of what their prisoners were up to. Grippen was smiling, an expression that sent a chill down Asher’s spine, and not simply due to the visible fangs.

“What, you’re pleased wi’ bein’ a prisoner in your own country?” Grippen took hold of Asher’s upper arm and pulled him bodily from his cot. “You’ve better uses for your time.”

“Are you expecting me to desert on a - a whim? To entertain you?” Asher didn’t bother to lower his voice. No one would hear them unless Grippen wanted it to happen. “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Visitin’ a friend,” Grippen lied through his smile. “Bringin’ news of the outside world.”

That did not bode well. Grippen wouldn’t bestir himself to ‘visit’ Asher without ulterior motives, and the cool grip around his arm wasn’t one that Asher would be able to break. Silver chains weren’t any sort of proper prisoner of war attire, after all. Grippen’s idea of a socially acceptable interaction with a human that he didn’t immediately qualify as food was to kidnap their daughter in order to force obedience.

Vampires didn’t have friends. Even if they did, what Grippen felt for Asher was not the slightest bit friendly. 

“What news?”

Grippen’s hand tightened on his arm. “Surprised to find you here, after that mess your people made, lettin’ the creatures roam loose in the streets. Thought you’d choose something t’ do with your life that’d let you keep on livin’. Or at least wi’ less chance of bein’ stabbed in the back.”

Asher froze.

“I knew you were clever.”

“What do you know?” Asher did not enjoy the feeling of powerlessness, held by a monstrous murderer who could walk the dreams and cloud the minds of humans. A monster that wanted something from him.

“I’ll show you,” Grippen’s smile had become something grim. 

“I can’t just walk away,” Asher said. “I have a duty -”

“To those who’ve no duty to you?” Grippen scoffed. “If you won’t walk away, I’ll take you.”

“They’ll look for me -” Asher stopped his words abruptly, suddenly aware that Grippen wasn’t alone. 

He couldn’t quite focus on them, but he knew they were there.

“Prison uniform off, Jimmy. I’ll not force you t’ be hunted as a deserter.” Grippen’s smile was again wide and smug. “No one’ll be huntin’ you at all.”

Asher fought against the encroaching darkness, but managed only to remain aware of being manhandled - and then nothing.

**

Natalia’s return to New York City left Lydia feeling somewhat adrift. Socializing wasn’t her forte, and she didn’t make friends easily. She missed Josetta, her oldest and dearest friend. Natalia’s openness and good nature, her acceptance of Lydia and Miranda, and her easy laughter made Lydia feel a little less unmoored.

Natalia also served as an excellent distraction. Once she and her small entourage had boarded the train back to New York City, Lydia found herself again wondering at Don Simon’s missive.

Seated in the window seat, a notebook on her lap and a pen in hand, she watched Miranda out on the lawn. Her daughter was playing some complex game involving a set of croquet balls, a hoop, and one of Ellen’s shoes. The sight should have been reassuring, seeing the delight on Miranda’s face as she played.

Instead, it made her worry.

If Cochran had indeed told other rich, ruthless men about vampires, and his plan to enslave one… how much _had_ he given away? He hadn’t appeared to have a particularly good understanding of how Don Simon’s powers actually worked, but Cochran _had_ known enough to capture and imprison the vampire in the first place.

How had he pulled that off, exactly? Don Simon had spoken of a trap, but she’d seen the things the vampire was capable of. She knew the other vampires were wary of him, knew how much he’d endured, for her, and for his own survival. What had it taken to bring him down?

He’d told her of the bait, difficulties with his finances, but he hadn’t gone into any more detail than that. He would not fall for the same trick a second time, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be future attempts.

If only she had some idea of who was searching for Don Simon, hunting for him in the narrow streets of New York City. She assumed that Don Simon was still in New York City, but she didn’t actually know. She didn’t have enough information and here, so far from the city, it was unlikely that she’d be able to find out. At least not easily.

There must be a way.

Frowning, she began another list.

**

The first thing Asher became clearly aware of was the smell. Familiar, and horrifying in that familiarity, he found himself stumbling backward even as he became more aware of his surroundings.

The stench didn’t abate with his retreat, and Asher clutched at the door frame he collided with, taking his new location. He found himself in a sitting room, somewhat drab and dusty. The windows were small and heavily curtained, and he wasn’t alone.

He was also fully clothed, which was something of a relief. The ill fit of the clothing and their size argued that he was in some cast offs of Grippen’s, which was less of a relief.

Grippen’s actual presence was no relief at all. 

“Where am I?”

“Not goin’ to ask about the smell?” Grippen snorted, from his place on the sofa, muddy boots resting on the arm. “Tis the sleepin’ place of a fledglin’, now abandoned.”

“I’d imagine that the smell is the reason it was abandoned.” Asher examined the room, taking in the obvious age and equally obvious lack of use or care. It wasn’t an expensive room, and lacked any real personality. It didn’t feel like a home, something most vampire lairs he’d seen had in common.

“You’d not be wrong. Nor right.” Grippen gestured over his own shoulder. “Tis there.”

The corpse lying behind the sofa was not what the smell had caused Asher to expect. Well preserved, the body was obviously that of a vampire. The lack of conscious mental manipulation meant that the death and subsequent inhumanity of the body was clear. Small claws tipped the fingers of the young man, and fangs could be seen in the partly opened mouth. The smell was very obviously coming from the body.

Which made no sense.

“What happened here?” Asher asked.

“You won’t be tellin’ me?” Grippen scoffed. “What d’ye think happened?”

“It smells like the Others,” Asher said. He knelt beside the body, frowning as he examined it. The clothes were rough and not well-made, but the shoes were of high quality indeed, if old. Cast-offs, no doubt. The man had probably been in service, when alive. “There’s not a mark on the body.”

“Tis because it died without ever becomin’ vampire.”

Asher glanced up, startled. “What?”

Grippen leaned over the back of the sofa, eyeing the body dispassionately. “One’ve my stupider fledglin’s thought to make their own. I found out, o’ course, an’ dealt wit’ the new ones. I was lookin’ for Mary herself, an’ she knew it. So she did somethin’ even stupider.”

“More so than attempting to set herself up as the new Master of London right under your nose?” The smell in the room argued that whatever her course, it had indeed been at least that foolish.

“She bit the first chit to cross her path. The girl had the influenza.”

“I thought that to become a vampire, you had to be healthy?” Asher looked again at the body on the floor, knowing that the first stage of vampirism involved the changing of the body.

“To survive the process, yes. The girl did not.” Grippen grimaced, flashing his fangs at Asher. “Mary had her soul, and no way to give it back.”

Asher winced.

“So the stupid woman bit another chit, sister to the first.”

“And she also had influenza?” Asher was starting to have a horrible premonition as to where this story would lead.

“Course she did. Tis infectious,” Gripped told him dryly. 

“So she also died, and now Mary had two souls.”

“Three, if you count her own. A little mad, she still had enough sense to finally choose someone healthy.” Grippen glanced at the body. “Didn’t help. Her bite killed him.”

“How?” Asher was fairly certain he would not like the answer.

Grippen’s dark, piggy eyes narrowed. “No idea, but.”

“But?”

“Tisn’t her latest victim, this one.”

Asher gritted his teeth. “Just _tell_ me.”

“The latest one got back up. And it killed her.” Grippen was suddenly on his feet. “She’s upstairs.”

‘Upstairs’ was a narrow hallway, lined by bedrooms. One of the doors was open, and Asher moved to peer through the doorway.

The body on the floor had been torn apart, and the smell was much stronger here. Mary’s face had been mutilated, her body torn apart. One clawed hand lay beside the door some distance from the body -

“You said the first of the Others showed up in Prague during the plague.” Grippen looked down at the body of his fledgling dispassionately. “I think it no coincidence that whate’er Mary made here turned on her. Mayhap she tried to give it some of the souls she carried with her, mayhap it was the influenza in her victims. Whate’er it became, it killed her and now tis loose in London.”

“ - and we don’t know anything about it, save that it probably woke immediately.”

“We know who it used to be,” Grippen said. “Tis a place to start.”

“Not much of one.”

“Better than nothin’, an’ I’ve seen you do more with less.”

Asher couldn’t argue that.

**

By Tuesday, Lydia had finished her list. It had evolved into several lists, in point of fact. It was somewhat frustrating to note that in order to make inquiries, and follow up on them, she would have to go to Albany or return to New York City. She had removed Miranda to Schenectady in hopes of a peaceful rustication and possibly finding time for further investigation into exactly what Cochran and Dr. Barvell had done to Don Simon.

Lydia and Ellen had been looking after Miranda together, and finding it no real hardship. There were plans to hire a governess for Miranda, but Lydia had been determined to find the perfect candidate; someone as far from the dour and prejudicial Mrs. Fursk as humanly possible. If Lydia planned to pursue her inquiries into vampire hunters, she would have to find someone to mind and teach Miranda immediately. Instead of choosing someone she could trust, Lydia would have to leave her daughter with Ellen and a _stranger_ , and how her impulses rebelled at that thought.

Miranda had been kidnapped not once, but twice - for Aunt Louise’s actions in bringing Miranda to the United States of America had been just as much a kidnapping as the morbid game of pass-the-human-parcel carried out by various vampires or their dupes several years before. With James so far away, leaving Miranda with only Ellen to be relied on felt like a betrayal.

Don Simon could take care of himself, had been doing so for centuries.

The truth - and a blatant lie. Yes, the centuries old vampire could certainly take care of himself. He had also found himself caught, captured, bound and in need of rescue less than a year ago. He had needed Lydia, called for her desperately, and she had responded.

Don Simon’s latest message hadn’t asked for help. His words hadn’t been anything more than a polite warning. He had Captain Palfrey to help him, to guard his rest during the daylight hours. Sweet, gullible Captain Palfrey - and Lydia was well aware that she was dangerously close to talking herself into investigating, whether her aid had been requested or not.

Upstairs, her small, precious, intelligent daughter slumbered happily. Safely. The thought helped to ground her. It would be madness to risk Miranda’s life and happiness when there was no need. No need whatsoever. Don Simon would let her know if he needed her. She glanced up from her list, attention captured by a stray thought. Don Simon -

Lydia bit back an undignified shriek of surprise. “How long have you been standing there?”

The slim figure by the door had certainly been there longer than she liked. Being familiar with the blurring of the mind and perception caused by vampires did not mean it was a pleasant experience, nor easy to recognize if not expecting it. 

“Not long,” Don Simon assured her softly. “I apologize for intruding.”

If it had been anyone else, Lydia would have been snatching her spectacles from her face. It seemed hypocritical, given the scars visible on Don Simon’s face. Long, jagged scars, normally hidden behind a facade of humanity, the tears in his flesh had been won while defending Lydia. Being allowed to see behind that facade, see the face that even vampires did not like to look upon, made the small vanity of hiding her spectacles seem slightly ridiculous.

He had seen her under much less flattering circumstances, after all.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. She tucked her lists into the desk, not wanting him to see the evidence of her worry. 

“That was my hope.” The faintest twitch of his lips indicated amusement. “For were you, of all people, to be taken by surprise, then a stranger would have little hope of determining my movements.”

“Were they so close to finding you?” Lydia felt a twinge of fear. 

Disdain, only readable on his features by the slight quirk of his eyebrows and Lydia’s familiarity with that particular expression, flickered across his pale features. “Their attempts, however ineffectual, were too close when first I became aware of them.’

“How are they - oh. Your finances.”

“As you say.” Don Simon was beside the fireplace now, and Lydia hadn’t seen him move. “Captain Palfrey rented us a house. I thought care enough had been taken, but they were aware of my accounts. To see movement in New York City was enough to warrant an investigation.”

“They found the house?”

“They did.” That same familiarity with his habits allowed Lydia to detect the sardonic humour in his words. “Not that my rest was taken there. I am less inclined to take risks with my person than once I was."

For a vampire, that was taking entirely justified paranoia and increasing it to levels which made her wonder why he was traveling out in the open, and not somewhere more easily defendable. The thought was ridiculous, in great part because she knew precisely what had brought him here.

“I am glad they did not find you.”

“As am I.” He had poked the fire back into life, and she could actually see his movements as he added a log. It required more concentration than she liked, but that was reassuring in its own way. She knew how to concentrate and what to look for. The people looking for Don Simon would have no such experience, or at least she hoped so.

“What will you do now?” Here, an ocean from Don Simon’s normal haunts and resources, it was a somewhat worrying question. 

He was beside her once more, cool, claw-tipped fingers brushing hers in a gesture of intimacy that she would once have rejected. “I have come to beg your indulgence and your hospitality.”

“You wish to sleep _here_?” The thought was alarming, her thoughts immediately leaping to Miranda. How could she keep her daughter safe, with a vampire -

“Not quite.” He withdrew slightly, leaving her feeling slightly bereft. “Simply to make use of the property you are renting. There is a carriage house at the edge of the far field, which has not been used in some time. ‘Twould be sufficiently out of the way for my purposes. At least for a short while.”

Lydia did not ask how he was familiar enough with the environs of her rented farmhouse to know of the existence of an abandoned building she herself had not been aware of. “Your… luggage?”

“Captain Palfrey is transporting it.”

That meant that Don Simon had most likely run from the train station, leaving his merely human retainer to handle the trunk he used for shelter while traveling. Lydia knew vampires could operate motor vehicles, even if James had been of the opinion that they absolutely should _not_. She knew also that vampires could travel with extreme swiftness while on foot. She did not, however, know whether they could outrun a car.

“Will it be safe enough?”

Don Simon took her concern as the permission it was. “Captain Palfrey will make certain of it.” He was again standing by the door. “He will call upon you tomorrow.”

With that he was gone, leaving Lydia blinking and with several burning questions left unanswered. She was certain he had done it on purpose.

**

Grippen gave Asher a series of addresses, a handful of money, and the spectacularly useless advice to ‘keep your head down’. Then he’d vanished, leaving Asher alone with his rising frustration.

Whatever had happened in Leigh was being kept quiet. Asher didn’t know if he were listed as missing, a deserter, or some unknown third option, and that information would be vital to his continued presence on British soil. Grippen doubtlessly knew, but was smugly unwilling to share. Until Asher had an explanation for the desertion of his post, one that did not hold the slightest trace of ‘vampire’, he could not risk attempting to find out.

It also meant he could not go home.

He felt Lydia’s absence with a sudden, painful keenness. It had been possible to hold at bay while he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Now he was free, so to speak, and he wanted to hear what she thought of this latest insanity, to take advantage of her brilliant, curious mind, her tenacity, and her medical expertise. She was his partner in all things, and to be forced to do this without her was more than simply unpleasant or inconvenient. It ached, pulling at something he couldn’t properly define.

The late summer night was muggy and warm, tugging at his borrowed, too-large clothes. Asher had to find a place to stay, would be unable to use any of the places he’d used before or go to anyone he knew. It was deeply unpleasant to realize that, even free of the prisoner of war camp, here at home he was still Abroad.

It was also unpleasant to realize that his impulse, when forcibly separate from Lydia, was to reach for someone else. Someone equally unavailable and entirely inhuman. At some point, possibly in St. Petersburg, Asher had made a choice. He’d thought it a choice reconsidered, undone when Grippen had kidnapped Miranda, forcing Lydia to work for him.

Vampires were predators, their existence fueled and sustained by the death of humans. They killed often and with a deep joy. They did not  
_care_ \- and that was something that he’d had to unlearn. Vampires are the dead. The dead do not love. Nothing lies between the living and the dead. 

Lady Ernchester had taught Asher that vampires can and do love, or could at least still love those they’d loved in life. Her tragic example proved that vampires can love with a purely emotional passion that is blinding. Petronilla had taught him that vampires can love humans, even those they did not meet until after they had left their own humanity behind. Don Simon - Don Simon had taught him that vampires can love humans to the point where the eternal existence that a vampire’s every moment and impulse was geared toward protecting - that existence meant less than the continued, ephemeral lives of those humans. 

Lydia had taught him that it was possible to love the dead.

It was not a lesson he’d enjoyed the learning of, but Lydia’s love for Don Simon was simply a part of her. He did not, could not resent it. Lydia’s joy was everything to him, as was their shared love of Miranda. Lydia would never choose between Asher and Don Simon, nor had it ever been something that had occurred to him as a possibility. Her love was not a quantifiable thing, and she did not love Asher any less, and never would. 

Much as it had sometimes torn at him, Don Simon’s devotion in turn was not something he could ignore or dismiss. The vampire had demonstrated his willingness to stand between Lydia and death on more than one occasion, sometimes with spectacular consequences.

He’d done the same for Asher.

Now, alone in London in the damp, uncomfortable darkness, Asher wished that he had access to the Spanish vampire. Facing one of the Others (or possibly more by now, Mary had been dead for two days), or something new and completely different, would be far easier with Don Simon at his side. 

Old, strong, ruthless, subtle, and with the ability to turn from perfectly composed to viciously savage in the blink of an eye, Asher should not be thinking wistfully of having the vampire at his back. Don Simon was keeping watch over Lydia and Miranda, and that should be enough. Knowing that his family, the people he loved more than anything in the world, were safe - it _had_ to be enough.

As he started down the street, he still wished for a glimpse of pale hair, or the whisper of a soft, accented voice. Asher tried not to think about it, concentrating instead on the need for somewhere to stay and a hot meal.

He met with only mixed success. Finally falling asleep in a place one step removed from actually sleeping in the gutter, his last thoughts were of Lydia in France, moving toward a train, with a slim figure in a British army uniform flickering in her wake.

**

_  
It is my painful duty to inform you -_

  
Lydia stared at the telegram, eyes dry. 

James Asher had been declared dead just six days ago. She reflected absently that the turn-around time for the notification was extremely short. Suspiciously so. The cause of death wasn’t particularly inspiring of confidence either.

_Killed in the line of duty.  
_

Not ‘killed in action’, as it would be if he’d been involved in a skirmish. Besides, he was back in Britain. Killed in the line of duty, for people of James’ occupation, meant murdered.

The War Office wanted her to know that James was dead, and that they were very sorry.

She’d been staring at the telegram for what felt like hours. The message within was not just suspicious, it made no sense.

James Asher was dead. The War Office said so.

“I don’t believe it.”

“As you shouldn’t.”

Lydia didn’t start or react, not at the voice, nor at the pale, clawed finger that traced the line ‘killed in the line of duty’.

“Mistress?”

That finally gained her attention and she blinked, taking in Don Simon’s presence properly. The telegram had arrived in the early afternoon, and she remembered being relieved that Ellen had taken Miranda to a neighboring farm to have dinner with the owner’s children. Captain Palfrey, having come to call from his lodgings in town, had offered to escort them. 

For Don Simon to be here, it must be late indeed. The sun set fairly late at this time of year, and the dinner hour must have passed while she attempted to think through the shock. 

She turned in her chair to face him, feeling oddly adrift. “They say that Jamie is dead.” Even the words felt wrong.

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” The words were soft, gentle. He looked back at her, expression its usual calm blankness, gaze focused on her.

“Would I?” Lydia paused, trying to think through the fog of disbelief. Once she would have been willing to swear to it. With the telegram before her? “Would you?”

“I should like to think so. I do not believe it either.” He plucked the telegram from her fingers and scrutinized the date. “August twenty-seventh. Not a week past.”

“They must have been monitoring him, to be certain and to notify me so quickly.” It was becoming easier to think critically, Don Simon’s flat disbelief helping her to push away the shock. “Another listening post?”

“Within Britain itself? A prisoner of war camp, most likely.” Don Simon frowned. “Does that make it more likely, or less?”

“Less,” Lydia decided, reaching to take back the telegram. “What do you think actually happened? Is this some sort of… cover? Or do they think him actually dead?”

Don Simon let her have the paper, eyes narrowed as he thought. “They would not lie to you about this. Whatever has happened, they believe it, which means they probably have a body.”

“A body? To falsify something like that would be tremendously difficult.” Height, weight, general appearance - those weren’t enough in wartime. But if they’d found him, found _it_ , in a controlled environment? “Or would it?”

“If the face were disfigured, and the body had enough other identifying marks, they would accept it.” 

The calm confidence in those words made Lydia wonder how often he’d taken advantage of such circumstances. This led her to wonder something else, and she shivered. “Do you think it wasn’t related? To the war?”

“You mean do I think it was one of those who hunt the night?” Don Simon considered it. “It is possible.”

“And if he is safe, it would be more than another week before any letter would reach me, and that is if it were safe to write immediately. “Lydia rose to her feet. “I must… explain this to Ellen. But Miranda -”

“You need only tell her that her father is in trouble,” Don Simon was still beside her, closer than propriety would dictate, but still with distance between them. A far cry from the man who had declared she could not travel alone without appearing a complete trollop. Things had changed a great deal since those days, or perhaps he simply knew her well enough to know that she would tolerate his antique perceptions even more poorly now than she had then.

He had moved away during her moment’s distraction and was quietly going through her desk. 

“That is quite the invasion of privacy,” she told him crossly, not making any move to stop him.

“Privacy is not a thing which has truly existed between us in some time,” he reminded her. After a moment, he turned, extending a familiar item to her. 

Lydia took the shipping schedule, staring at it much as she’d stared at the telegram. “But -”

“You have already made up your mind,” he said. She’d forgotten how much that mannerism annoyed her. “It is merely a matter of making arrangements.”

**

Frustration was attempting to gather information in London in September of 1918.

The asking of even innocent questions tended to be regarded with wariness. Rationing meant that Asher had to resort to illegal behaviour almost immediately. In a nation at war, people were unwilling to deal with strangers, and Asher was barred from seeking help from anyone who might recognize his face.

To make matters worse, there was illness everywhere. The influenza which had infected Mary’s two young victims and possible precipitated this entire mess had become nearly omnipresent. Asher’s own lungs had not entirely recovered from his near-death experience with pneumonia just a few years before, and his exposure to influenza was near certain.

Still, he was not without resources. It took several long, hungry days before he found the contact of someone he knew, and their supplier in turn. He did not have time to be more careful than that, and two steps of separation would have to suffice.

Access to records was even more questionable, especially without proper identification papers. Asher had become one of the nameless, faceless poor, unwillingly joining the ranks of those who deaths most often fed the vampires and other, more human, predators. His inclusion in this group did not make him particularly happy, especially with a new threat at large in the darkness.

He did not delay his investigation into Mary’s killer while he worked on finding a reliable source of food and access to public records. Instead, he began with the address of Mary’s last victim.

Geoffrey MacAdam, aged 31, was a labourer. He had come to London from Galloway seeking work, as he was lame and unable to enlist. Work there was aplenty, thanks to most of Britain’s able-bodied men being away at war, and he was fairly well known as the reliable sort. He’d failed to show up at his latest workplace the day after Grippen felt Mary’s death, and had not been seen since. Grippen reported that he’d been seen with Mary, more than once, and also on the night of her death.

Unlike vampires, the Others took some little time to actually sink into madness, and he hoped that MacAdam might have returned to his home and possibly still be rational enough to refrain from random murder until he could be dealt with. The method and swiftness of Mary’s death argued against it, but Asher clung to hope.

His arrival at the Brixton address saw the death of that hope. The small building was crammed between two larger, more modern buildings, making it look even shabbier in comparison. He didn’t get close enough to make any other observations. Something warned him away, something about the quietness of the street, about the _feel_ of it.

Asher was familiar with the way a vampire would ward someone off, conceal themselves from someone seeking their place of rest. This was nothing like that feeling, and held something he was far more familiar with. Someone was watching.

The time was in the mid-afternoon, with the sun still high in the sky, and Asher couldn’t shake the odd feeling. Given his experience, he didn’t try. Still dressed in shabby cast-offs, though these fit him better than Grippen’s cast-offs, he ambled down the street. He looked enough like a veteran, down on his luck and suffering from shell shock. No one should take particular note of him. He carefully didn’t pay any particular attention to the buildings or the few other people out and about. 

By the time he reached the end of the block, Asher was certain that he was being watched. A sinking feeling in his gut let him know that it was unlikely his observer was the creature he was searching for. What made that sinking feeling worse was his memory of Grippen’s words in the prison at Leigh. ‘Less likely to be stabbed in the back.’

They might have thwarted the Department’s interest in the Others a year ago, but that did not mean they had managed to stamp it out entirely. For them to already be seeking whatever MacAdam had become meant that Mary’s earlier frenzy had attracted attention, somehow. Another worry to consider, how did they know what to look for? How had they found her, or him, so quickly?

Asher’s search acquired a new urgency with that realization, and it had been extremely urgent even prior to this. Hungry, dispirited, weary, and feeling sweat drip inside his ill-fitting clothes, Asher kept his steady pace back to his lodgings, looking neither left nor right. He still felt that sense of being watched, but it faded the further he got from that shabby looking house in Brixton.

If they were still focusing on that location, it was unlikely that MacAdam had returned there. Which meant Asher would have to start from scratch. Hopefully Grippen would have more information, and be willing to share it.

**

Ellen thought Lydia was mad, even if traveling back to England to be with James while he ‘recovered from an injury’ was terribly romantic. Miranda was terribly excited about more travel. Natalia shared Ellen’s thoughts on Lydia’s decision making prowess but didn’t feel it necessary to be discouraging. Reality was doing that job for her.

Unrestricted submarine warfare made attempting transatlantic travel more than merely difficult. The chances of reaching Britain were currently being given as 1 in 4, and Lydia was not taking those odds well. She was willing to risk it, however, which was more than most shipping companies were.

“Well, you are a doctor, are you not?” Natalia was flipping idly through a newspaper while Lydia wrote to yet another company that was supposedly still ferrying people across the Atlantic.

“What has that to do with my travel plans?” Lydia asked.  
  
“Well, the RMS Mauretania is currently in dock, due to sail in two days,” Natalia told her. She folded the newspaper and passed it to Lydia. “While they’re currently serving as a troop ship, and not taking civilian passengers, they’re looking for medical personnel for the voyage. You have served before, yes? Perhaps you could volunteer again.”

Lydia stared at her for a long moment before snatching the paper. “I did. I could. But - Ellen and Miranda?”

“You can possibly negotiate for family members, and Miranda will need someone to look after her while you work, yes?” Natalia smiled brightly. “I know the daughter of the British Ambassador. Shall I make inquiries?”

“Yes. Yes _please.”  
_

Don Simon, when he appeared later that evening, was even more encouraging. “While on dry land, I can arrange for Palfrey to gain passage. I can also arrange for the British Ambassador to be receptive to your bringing your daughter with you.”

It took almost the entire two days for arrangements to be made, and vampiric mental pressure to be properly applied. They did manage, however, although Lydia mourned the number of her possessions she would have to leave behind.

“I can always ship them to you after the war,” Natalia assured her. “You’ll have little need of a smart wardrobe aboard ship.”

They set sail on September 10th, aboard the RMS Mauretania, the fastest liner on the seas. Lydia prayed they would be in time.

**

Grippen, when he invited himself into Asher’s tiny, squalid room, did indeed have information to share, and Asher was careful not to ask where he’d gotten it, nor to comment on the vampire’s smugness at being right about the back-stabbing.

“Your Department is still on the hunt for anythin’ that might give them an advantage in the war, for all that tis good as over. I misdoubt an they were behind this, but they’d certainly take advantage, and I knew naught of the two sick girls till their bodies were discovered. There’s enough there for a certain type of imagination to go mad for.” Grippen seemed torn between his glee at knowing more than Asher and his disgust at the humans for their methods.

“We should find out where this obsession is coming from, and end it,” Asher said.

Grippen snorted. “And you call my lot blood-thirsty monsters?”

Asher didn’t dignify that with a reply. 

“Any road, here’s a list of bodies they found ‘suspicious’. Nothin’s leapin’ out at me, but I figure that’s what you’re for.”

Asher really hated Grippen, but he took the list. “I hope that if I get picked up as a suspicious character, you’ll come to my rescue.

“I might.” Grippen’s smugness returned. “If there were somethin’ in it for me.”

Glaring, Asher retrieved his shabby coat and headed out into the night.

**

Life aboard the RMS Mauratenia was very different from their voyage on the City of Gold. For one thing, the massive, multiple renovations that the liner had undergone when it first became a troop ship, then a hospital ship, and now a troop ship again, had left it less a traveling palace of luxury and more a floating dormitory. 

This, despite the extravagant use of wood panelling and flooring, beautiful marble found here and there, and even elevators, gave the ship a claustrophobic feel. No amount of luxury in the decorating and fittings could make up for the sheer number of men currently berthed in the cabins and staterooms of the Mauretania.

Lydia was used to such crowding, given her adventures in pursuing her studies and her time at the clearing station in France. She did not mourn the luxury of space, merely grateful that she had found a berth aboard what was still the fastest liner on the seas. Every day brought her closer to James, or at least knowledge of what had befallen him, and she clung to that knowledge.

Ellen was less thrilled, but soldiered on determinedly, focusing on Miranda and on keeping their cabin tidy. Keeping Miranda out of trouble had become a full time occupation. Freedom from Mrs. Frusk had brought out an adventurous streak that Ellen outwardly despaired of. Lydia suspected her of encouraging some of the more harmless mischief. Neither of them had enjoyed Mrs. Frusk’s ideas of what a young girl should do and be, and seeing Miranda’s free spirit and happy laughter was a small price to play for the occasional silly joke.

Lydia spent her days moving between the infirmary and their cabin, with the occasional foray out onto the deck. She’d seen Captain Palfrey once or twice, but it was simply a moment in passing. Surrounded by troops, he’d reverted to a much more military set of behaviours, and speaking to an unchaperoned lady, member of the medical staff or no, was highly discouraged.

There wasn’t much to do in the infirmary, and Lydia’s position was simply that of someone who knew medical procedures and could assist the doctors. They had several cases of sea-sickness, one or two minor injuries, and a few cases of the sniffles. Without much to do, Lydia perused the small medical library, and answered questions for the younger orderlies, who had not yet seen combat.

It was two days into the six day voyage when Lydia woke from a sound sleep to find Don Simon standing at the foot of her bed. Not entirely awake, she blinked at him for a moment or two, trying to be certain she wasn’t dreaming.

“There are those aboard who are searching for a piece of luggage large enough to contain a body,” he stated, without preamble. “It is fortunate that Captain Palfrey is generally a friendly soul, as people are prone to tell him the most astonishing things. I am not certain whence these people received their information, but either they were looking for anyone who came over on the City of Gold, or we were followed.”

Don Simon was exceedingly displeased by this and let his displeasure, however muted, show.

“What?”

He ignored the question, rightly deeming it rhetorical. “Keep an eye on your daughter and your maid. Do not walk the passageways alone.”

With that, he was gone, leaving her wide awake and fuming. This was her place, just as the medical tents at the clearing station had been. She did not need to be protected. She needed to do something, to take some action.

Unfortunately, it being midnight, the most logical action was to go back to sleep. That did not prevent her from planning to have words with Don Simon on the following night.

The following night, however, discovered seven men in the infirmary, all having come down with the influenza. Lydia found herself with her hands full, being given command of the infirmary due to her previous experience at the clearing station, while the doctors and medics lectured the various commanding officers on what to do and how to start instituting quarantine to keep the entire ship’s complement from ending up with the influenza/.

**

The list of suspicious deaths wasn’t terribly long, which was heartening. It consisted of fifteen names, two of which could be immediately discounted as perfectly normal murder. ‘Perfectly normal’ indeed. How Asher’s life had changed since encountering Don Simon. Two more were the sisters which Mary had killed first, and their deaths did not fit the pattern he was looking for. No one had reported her penultimate victim missing or dead and Asher was able to ignore him entirely, the unfortunate man. Unfortunately, six out of ten of the remaining deaths were not so easily accounted for, and all six had occurred in the last five days, which was less encouraging. 

It took several carefully disguised visits to various morgues, pretending to be one person’s relative or another, but Asher managed to rule out two more bodies. He identified three more as definitely being victim to the same creature that had killed Mary.

By then, the list of bodies had grown.

Without proper identification, Asher was reduced to making lists of people he knew in the Department who might have information, questions about the deaths which needed answering, and further lists of people who might have those answers.

“D’you think I spend my sleepin’ hours roamin’ the minds of every soul in England?” Grippen demanded, looking at the lists. “I’m not the dago whoreson to go dipping my fingers into every passin’ idiot’s brain.”

“Do you want to catch this thing before or after you have a small army of them on your hands?” Asher was tired, hungry, and filthier than he liked to be. His mustache was running riot, and he’d developed a scraggly beard which itched unpleasantly.

“We don’t even know if it can procreate!”

“Then think of the mobs and riots that will form if this level of killing remains consistent. Or, God forbid, grows.”

Grippen, having vivid memories of several such incidents, as well as the gruesome object lesson of the fate of the French vampires during the Revolution, made no more protests. “It’ll take a few days.”

“We’ll have to hope it doesn’t procreate, then.”

Snarling, Grippen vanished.

Sighing, Asher abandoned his rented room and returned to the streets. Inquiries still had to be made. As most of the deaths had occurred amongst the poorest of the population, those with no safe homes to go to, or people to report them missing, it was easy enough to use Grippen’s money to loosen a few lips. It would’ve been easier if he’d had access to food, or ration cards to bargain with but he would make do.

**

Lydia’s quiet, easy existence aboard the RMS Mauretania died a swift death by the time the tenth soldier was brought to the infirmary. The number of influenza cases increased, swiftly and dramatically. By the end of the third day, there were two deaths amongst the soldiers, and another thirty were ill. One of the large dining rooms had been converted into a sick ward, and Lydia spent her days on her feet.

She and the other medical staff spent their nights checking on the sickest of the young soldiers, doing her best to insure they would survive until the morning. She was far less successful than she would have liked, and her heart ached every time another soldier was brought in.

The captain of the ship had taken the medical advice seriously, and the soldiers and crew were being kept carefully separate in an attempt to contain the illness spreading so rapidly through the ship.

Captain Palfrey had gone into quarantine with Miranda and Ellen. Lydia suspected Don Simon’s hand in ‘getting someone reliable to look after the civilians’. Not that she was worried about catching the influenza. She, Ellen, and Miranda had gone through the illness in the very early spring and were unlikely to catch it again.

Miranda was not taking her confinement to quarters well. She adored the opportunity to go out on deck to watch the waves. Ellen and Captain Palfrey had to combine forces to keep the small girl within her quarters. It wasn’t that she did not understand the danger, she simply regarded it as less important than fresh air and the smell of the sea.

Lydia left them to deal with it, promising Miranda that they would take Mrs. Marigold to the sea once they reunited with James. She hoped desperately that it was a promise she could keep. 

Of Don Simon, there was no sign.

**

Grippen came up with four new names, a list of locations, and the information that ‘I don’t know what’s goin’ on in their poxy minds, but your Department seems to have come down with a terminal case of the stupid.”

His nighttime journeys had apparently yielded quite a few theories as to wherever this creature was hiding, and also the idea that it wasn’t/couldn’t procreate. “There’s lots of killin’, but no more than could be done by a single creature, however ravenous.”

Unhappily, none of these places were near the water, another strike against this being the generation of one of the Others. With a grimace of distaste, and the knowledge that he’d be definitely venturing into areas already under surveillance, Asher set out.

“At least you’ll know how to get past ‘em,” were Grippen’s words of encouragement. “An if you can’t, I’ll take you ‘round tomorrow.” Implying that he’d put the watchers to sleep. At the moment, that seemed by far the preferable option.

“Just work on an alibi, so I can get my life back when this is over.”

Grippen smirked. “Is it really life you want to go back to? I did make you an offer, Jimmy.”

Asher ignored him.

**

The difficulty with enforcing a quarantine is that those being quarantined have to cooperate. Miranda, as Don Simon had noted, was a very clever girl. She wanted to see her mother and, while generally an obedient child, she had also inherited her mother’s stubbornness and her father’s inability to let something go.

She knew that very serious adult things were going on, and that people were sick. She’d been sick herself earlier in the year. Being Lydia’s daughter, she knew also that illnesses could be contagious. However, Miranda knew that her father was in trouble, and that her mother was busy helping people. She loved Ellen, and Captain Palfrey was willing to play games with her - but she’d grown used to having her mother by her side. She wanted Lydia to tuck her in and to tell her all the ways they might rescue her father.

Lydia had never been one to lie to children.

Captain Palfrey turned out to be a heavy sleeper, and Miranda chose her time of escape to take the greatest possible advantage of that. Most little girls would not choose the middle of the night to go in search of their mother, but Miranda was not most little girls.

Despite its conversion to a troop ship, the Mauretania still had signage here and there to allow passengers to find their way around the enormous ship. Miranda knew that her mother was working and sleeping in the infirmary, and she set out to find her way there.

As few of the ship’s original designations were in the same places they were before the multiple renovations it had suffered over the course of the war, it took Miranda very little time to become completely lost. Many of the passages looked the same, and she wasn’t certain how many floors she’d descended in the second stairwell. She eventually found herself in what had once been the smoking room, completely turned about and with no idea where to go next.

Don Simon found her there, several hours after her escape. The little girl, in her brand new fashionable nightdress and slippers, was sitting under the rather ostentatious octagonal table at the center of the room, struggling to stay awake. Something had drawn him to her, without his being aware that she’d been wandering. He wasn’t certain what it was that brought him to her side, but there was something….

“Hello, Simon.” She beamed at him sleepily.

“Hello, Miranda.” Don Simon crouched before her, extending a claw-tipped hand. “Are you looking for your mother?”

“Yes, please.” She leaned forward, fingers grazing his. “Are you well? You said you would be. You look better.”

Don Simon had not expected her to remember that conversation, nor her aplomb at seeing him as he truly was. Given her parents, he was not as surprised as he could have been. “I am.” He drew her into his arms, rising smoothly to his feet. “You should not be wandering at night, Miranda.”

“But Mama has been busy for days,” Miranda pointed out. “I need to see her.”

“You want to be certain she is well?” Something was tugging at Don Simon’s attention. He cursed the sea that surrounded them, unable to pinpoint what it was that was bothering him.

“Ellen says everyone is sick and dying,” Miranda said. She looked up at him, able to see his scars and his claws and utterly fearless at what they suggested. “Is it true?”

“Many people are sick and dying,” Don Simon agreed dispassionately. “Your mother does not wish you to be one of them. That is why she did not come back to your stateroom.”

“Because I could catch the influenza again,” Miranda agreed. “If it’s not the same strain.” Lydia was very firm on Miranda having all the information necessary to understand her mother’s decisions. “I need to see her.”

Don Simon considered. “Very well.” He paused for a long moment, eyes narrowing. “We will go to the infirmary.”

That same, mildly unsettling feeling lingered, and Don Simon silently cursed the water beneath and around them. Something wasn’t right. Someone was watching, had possibly been watching Miranda and waiting to see if anyone would come for her.

  
Although they were most likely not expecting whoever came to let her live.

It was past midnight, and the illusion of humanity was no longer on him. Normally he would not have wandered where he might be seen but he’d been drawn to Miranda, possibly _because_ someone was watching her. Mistake made, all he could do was make certain Miranda would reach her mother without interference.

He would deal with the rest later.

**

The damp of the London autumn was attempting to settle into Asher’s bones. Between his inability to find food regularly, the squalor of the place he was sleeping, and the lungs that hadn’t fully recovered from his nearly deadly bout of pneumonia, he wasn’t in the best of health to start with.

He was developing a cough.

Asher struggled to stay focused, something he normally had no difficulty accomplishing, no matter the circumstances. He’d managed to lay his hands on several newspapers, but they were next to no use. Thanks to the censors and the desire to ‘maintain morale’ for the civilian public, very little news that wasn’t encouraging was published. A series of deaths not far from the docks barely rated a notice about ‘taking care when walking after sunset’.

He found himself forced to rely on the rumors spread amongst the less fortunate and upon whatever news Grippen could dredge up as he walked the streets. Asher tried not to think of what Grippen was actually hunting during those ‘walks’ as they strode down London’s streets toward Wapping.

“The rumors say to avoid the docks at night. Not that there’s much reason to walk there these days, but even the scavengers are staying away.” Asher forced himself to walk with a steady gait, despite the fact that even minor exertion was making him wheeze.

“They’ve reason enough,” Grippen said. “Place like that could still see bombin’. Not all of it’s been repaired.”

“A good place to hide, then.”

“Not for one of us,” Grippen said. “They do rebuild, if not to any set schedule, an’ there be traffic enough durin’ the day. Only an unthinkin’ beast’d take shelter there.”

“All the more reason to suspect that the rumours are true.”

With so many men at war, and women taking up their empty places, the streets were near deserted at night, at least by London standards. Yet even those left on the streets gave Asher and his vampiric companion a wide berth. There were certain advantages to travelling with the dead, despite the death and horror which followed in their footsteps.

They walked in silence for a short while, before Grippen said, “I’ve seen the lastest bodies. Wounds are gettin’ uglier. Don’t think it can reproduce. Doubt it can sustain itself, or it’s gettin’ madder an’ bolder.”

“You don’t think that there are more than just the one?” Asher was curious as to the reasoning, as it had left no witnesses, as yet, and quite a few bodies. The count had risen again by half in just a few days. At least of the bodies that had been found.”

“I think that Mary’s madness infected it, as much as the change itself. It’s attacking for convenience, not for feedin’. Anythin’ within reach, seems like.” 

They were approaching the docks, now. This end had been repaired, rebuilt as best possible. Spare, due to wartime constraints, but with new materials. The wear of a few years had yet to put it in a state where it looked old or even slightly worn, when compared to the old docks. Of course, traffic had dwindled as well, with U-Boats discouraging any shipping but that totally necessary, and even that had only a tiny chance of reaching Britain.

“So you’re saying it’ll be discovered as for what it is soon, then.”

“I’m sayin’ tis a miracle it hasn’t been discovered already.”

Forced to pause to catch his breath, Asher leaned against a lamppost, staring at the edge of the huge, 30 acre docks, and wondering how far in they’d have to go. At least watchmen wouldn’t be of concern. If Grippen didn’t will it, they’d not be seen.

“You’re not in the best of health, Jimmy. You certain you want to be doin’ this?”

Asher glared at the vampire. “Who else could you get to do it? Your fledglings have never been the most reliable.”

“Reliable enou’ to get you out of that prison.”

“Reliable enough to spawn horrors.”

Grippen narrowed his eyes. “Considerin’ the war, you’ve little to stand on when it comes to horrors.”

“There is a great difference -”

Grippen saw it first, heavy clawed hands coming down on Asher’s shoulders and dragging him into the shelter of a nearby doorway. Reflex had Asher shutting up immediately, not resisting the pull, and waiting until Grippen had them away from the open before attempting to see what had gained the vampire’s attention.

It did not look like the Others, with their strange, muzzle-like deformations. Nor did it look like vampires, with or without the glamour that made them appear so attractive. It looked almost human, though with a slack mouth that showed sharp teeth, and a pallor much like that of the vampire. On a dark night it might pass as human, until you were too close to get away. The ragged clothes were not out of place, though the grime was certain to be dried blood, and probably stank.

It was not alone, and that made Asher’s blood run cold.

The second figure was much the same, though the mouth was closed, and the pallor less pronounced. The clothing was also in better shape, though not by much. It had been torn and slashed about the throat and abdomen, and hung open in places. It was also a woman, which made the first one the unfortunate MacAdam. Hopefully.

“They don’t stink,” Grippen said softly. “Not like the Others. Not like the one as didn’t rise.”

Another unfortunate difference, because that same stench acted as a warning, one which Asher was used to. They watched as the two dead creatures walked slowly toward them. They even moved like humans, if more smoothly and easily than most of their apparent age. As they walked beneath the dim light cast by one of the few lamps still lit, Asher noticed something else.

“Their faces,” he whispered.

“They’re clean,” Grippen agreed grimly. “Hands too, and look at the claws.”

The claws weren’t curved, but straight. They looked unnatural, or as much as could be demanded of the word in a situation such as this.

“We need to kill them,” Asher said. 

“I thought we’d invite them to tea,” came the acerbic response. “You be bait, Jimmy.”

The next moment, Asher was alone in the doorway, cursing under his breath. He wished for a ridiculous moment that Don Simon wasn’t on the other side of the ocean, and would appear out of the darkness to make his own role as bait entirely unnecessary.

He was incapable of such self-delusion, unfortunately. He slipped the silver chains from his wrists, securing them around his palms as well, and stepped out of the scant shelter of the doorway.

**

The vast coolers in the RMS Mauretania (and Lydia had been quite confused by the fact that the crew called it the Mauretania, and the troops called it the Tuberose until the Admiralty designation had been explained to her) were becoming crowded. 

The influenza was making huge inroads on the troops aboard the ocean liner. It was fortunate that the Mauretania had served temporarily as a hospital ship, as it was easy enough to reconvert some of the troop quarters to hospital rooms.

The attempt to quarantine had failed, possibly due to the enclosed living quarters, and the illness could be found in all quarters of the ship. Only four days from port, and there had been nearly twenty deaths, with well over a hundred gravely ill. Lydia had given up on sleep the day before, moving through the quarters of the sick and doing what she could to keep them comfortable.

It was horrifying in its familiarity. The young and healthy brought low and dying around her, only this time, surgery would bring no hope, nor relief. There was nothing to be done for the men dying around her, save keep them warm and hydrated, and full of as many calories as possible. 

With the vomiting, proper nutrition and hydration was not always possible, and as the illness struck quickly and savagely, it often left those who had been helping the sick the day before bedridden and struggling themselves.

The doctors had been quick to recruit those who had suffered the influenza recently, and those people seemed more or less immune - Lydia among them.

Even little Miranda and Ellen were now moving amongst the sick. Miranda fetched water for the stricken soldiers, and Ellen administered hot soup to those who seemed able to keep liquids down. Captain Palfrey was still stuck in their stateroom, with strict injunction not to leave it for any reason. He had not previously had the influenza and seemed safe enough for the moment. He chafed terribly at his inability to participate but as he appeared to have an unfortunate reaction to the vomiting of others, it was felt best to leave him tucked away.

Of Don Simon, there was no sign.

“Mama, there were men watching us. When Simon found me.” Miranda was curled up with Lydia on a cot in one of the converted dining halls. “He said he would have to hide more carefully.”

Lydia still wasn’t certain how she felt about the centuries-old vampire manipulating the dreams of her only child. She knew that he would never deliberately bring harm to Miranda, would probably die to save her. That did not ease her mind. “Men?”

“He said someone was watching.”

“Watching him?”

“Watching us.” Miranda yawned. “He was worried. Why must he hide?”

Lydia considered her answer carefully. “Because he has enemies. People who wish to hurt him. We saved him from those enemies on our last voyage. On board a ship, he has fewer places to hide, and it is more dangerous for him.”

“Oh.” Miranda considered that sleepily. “But he has claws?”

“He does not wish to hurt anyone. It is safer to hide.” Lydia wondered how much of that was the truth. Don Simon had told her that he no longer felt the desire to murder, no longer found it necessary in order to continue his existence. That did not mean he would be reluctant to kill, if he felt the situation warranted it. Here on a ship, however, he himself had stated that it would be madness.

Which merely set her to wondering how best to cover up such deaths, should they become necessary. She had no qualms about the deaths of those who would hurt her loved ones, or use them as weapons, and she wondered when that had changed.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

Miranda blinked up at her, now half-asleep. “Will he be safe?”

Lydia gathered her daughter closer, letting the heartbeat and warmth soothe her. “We will protect him.”

Once it would’ve been ridiculous to make such a claim. James had gone into the tunnels in St. Petersburg to kill Don Simon, and had chosen to let the vampire live. She’d never asked him why, though it might have been to save her sorrow. She wondered if he’d had other reasons, but they’d never spoken of it. She’d been willing to kill Don Simon herself, or so she’d thought, when they’d embarked on the City of Gold. Now?

Now it was only the truth.

**

Asher was wheezing again as he walked toward the monsters, anticipation and fear making it hard to catch his breath. He could feel the silver chains around his throat and his hands, and they did not make him feel any safer. He had a silver letter opener up his sleeve, and he curved his fingers around it, hoping that whatever these creatures had become, silver would still work against them.

He almost did not receive the opportunity to find out.

Between one moment and the next, they were upon him. There came no blurring of his perceptions, no moments of lost time. They sprang from a simple walk into a forward lunge almost too fast for his eyes to follow. Asher managed to bring up one arm, letter-opener half-drawn from his sleeve, and then claws were slashing across his forearm.

He staggered backward, lashing out with his letter-opener as the woman was torn away away from him. She screamed, Grippen swore, and Asher had no attention to spare as MacAdam went for his throat.

Luck was with him, even as he staggered, feeling sharp teeth scrape the scars on his throat. MacAdam let go with a garbled shriek, clawing at his own face. Asher stabbed him clumsily, the angle terrible for a thrust, and MacAdam fell away. Silver to the rescue, and as Asher’s own hand went to his throat, trying to assess the damage, MacAdam turned tail and ran.

Blood trickling over his fingers, Asher stared blankly at the fleeing creature. The Others didn’t run once they had a victim, silver or no. He fumbled with the letter opener, absently reflecting that he should keep the blood on it preserved for Lydia - Lydia who wasn’t here….

“Don’t you faint, Jimmy!” Grippen was suddenly holding him up by the forearms. “You’re not hurt so bad as you can’t keep your eyes open.”

Asher noted absently that Grippen was liberally spattered with blood and wondered how that had happened. He staggered, held up only by the iron grip on his arms. “Where’s… the woman?”

“Dead,” Grippen said. “Again. Stay awake.”

“He ran away.” Asher clutched at Grippen in return, ignoring the vampire’s hiss at the silver still wrapped around his palms. “He… he _thinks_.”

“Bad sign,” Grippen told him. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Lydia. She’d want to know -”

It was the last thing he remembered.

**

“I have moved my trunk twice,” Don Simon told Lydia, watching as Miranda carried water across the wide room. “They continue to search, and it is becoming more difficult to evade them. They have narrowed down the areas where I might safely hide and revisit them often.”

Lydia nodded tiredly. “Would it be safer to sleep in our stateroom? If you could convince Ellen to not notice the trunk?”

“Mayhap. I fear someone has made the connection between us. The passenger manifest from the City of Gold was public." The distaste in his tone from his private matters being so easily accessed was a definite holdover from his days as a hidalgo. "Despite that, I may be forced to take advantage of your hospitality once more. They are quite persistent but not, I think, yet ready to invade the private quarters of a gentlewoman volunteering amongst the sick.”

It being close to midnight, he seemed human enough, but it was a thin disguise. Lydia found herself missing his normal face, though normal was a peculiar notion to attach to his true appearance. “Have you gotten close enough to learn anything about them?” 

“Only that they are looking for me specifically. They are blaming the deaths of Cochran and his doctor on me. They are seeking Stoker’s creature, lacking more specific knowledge, but they know how to search.” 

“Dracula had his Renfield. Are they looking for me?”

“I will not let them harm you.” He touched her face with his cool fingers, careful to keep his claws from grazing her skin. 

Lydia forced a small smile. “Here on the water, you cannot guarantee that.”

“No, but I can make it more difficult.” He smiled, faintly, the expression gone in a flash. “Stay alert.”

Her smile became more genuine, if rueful. “I will try.”

He knew she would push herself to the utmost, attempting to prevent the deaths of the young men around them. 

“For Miranda, if not for yourself.”

Automatically, Lydia glanced up, looking for her daughter.Amongst the beds and cots, occupied by restless sleepers or those who were kept awake by the ache of the influenza, there was no sign of the little girl.

“Miranda?” Lydia rose to her feet, alarm rising.

“She has been taken.” Don Simon was already in motion, but Lydia snatched at his arm. He stopped, something she could not have accomplished with every bit of strength in her body unless he had allowed it.

She stared up at him, eyes hard. “Find her.”

“I will have to kill them,” he told her gently. “They will know she is a weakness - and I have little time with my full abilities.”

A glance at her watch told Lydia that it was just past midnight. Little time indeed. No time for moral quandaries at all. “Save her.”

“I will,” and he was gone.

Lydia did not try to see him go, rising instead to her feet and looking for Ellen. She might not be a vampire, but she was resourceful enough. Right now what Lydia needed more than anything was a familiar face.

**

When Asher came back to himself, everything was cold and somewhat blurry. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a raspy cough.

“I don’t know who you are, my friend, but I’ve been paid a large sum of money to see that you stay alive.” The voice was rich and plummy, oozing friendliness with its tone, despite the words. “You’re very sick. You’ve not only got the influenza, it looks like you either already have pneumonia, or it’s just a matter of time. Possibly minutes. That’s a death sentence on its own, with the state you’re in.”

A large hand patted his as a man leaned over him. Asher fought to focus, but couldn’t take in more than a confused impression that he was being seen to by Father Christmas.

“That Grippen’s a tough customer. Wouldn’t like for you to die and leave him looking to me for answers.” Father Christmas placed a cool, damp cloth on Asher’s forehead. “I’ve given you what I can to ease your cough, but you’ll have to survive the influenza to make the effort worth it.”

A monster was still loose in the dock area. Lying sick in bed with an illness that had lately killed so many would help no one. Asher needed to be on his feet. He needed to be out hunting that monster - although he couldn’t decide if he meant MacAdam or Grippen. 

Attempting to get out of bed led precisely nowhere. The blanket felt as though it weighed as much as a horse, and he couldn’t seem to push himself upward.

“You’ll lie still and like it, young man,” he was advised. “Not that you can do aught else.”

This time, when Asher slept, he dreamed of Lydia.

She moved amongst cots filled with the sick, and when she came to his cot, she sat beside him, taking his hand in hers.

“We’re on our way,” she promised him. “We’ll be making port in Liverpool tomorrow. I wired ahead for car to take us to the railway station, and we’ll be in London as quickly as possible.” Her cool hand rested against his fevered cheek, and she looked down at him worriedly. “We will find you, Jamie. Just… just wait for us.”

He couldn’t speak, but he made his hand move far enough to touch her arm, unresisting as she gathered his hand in both of hers.

“Please be all right, Jamie. Please hold on.”

Asher could make her no promises, but he drifted into other dreams, the memory of her cool hands sustaining him.

**

Miranda was frightened. 

She’d been bringing water to one of the soldiers on a cot closest to the door. She’d helped him close his hands around the mug, a task she was growing used to. Concentrating on that, she hadn’t noticed the door open. She hadn’t seen the man who’d come into the room, only registering his presence when he wrapped his arms around her, one hand over her mouth, and whisked her out the door.

She had learned more about how to find her way around the ship, and knew that they were in a part of the ship where passengers were not supposed to go. There was very little of that pretty wood panelling here, and the metal wasn’t painted. Everything was dull and dark, and she kicked her captor as hard as she could.He snarled at her, but she retaliated by biting his hand and kicking him again.

She was not dropped, but it was a close call. Miranda bit and kicked and scratched, wriggling and squirming as he struggled to maintain his hold on her. She was concentrating so hard on getting her captor to let go that she had no idea where they were when he did finally let her go.

“She’s a menace, this one.”

Miranda turned and bolted for the passageway, but a different man swiftly closed the door and leaned against it. She swerved and backed away, watching both men as she looked for another way out. This was not her first kidnapping, after all.

_Miranda, where are you?_

She didn’t know, but she knew it was somewhere belowdecks. Somewhere close to the engines.

 _I am coming._

Miranda knew the strange voice belonged to Don Simon. She didn’t know how he was speaking to her, but she trusted him. He had rescued her mother and father and they had rescued him. He would rescue her.

“Look, little girl, your mother has taken up with a very dangerous man.” The new man sank to his knees and tried to look friendly. Miranda didn’t believe it for a minute. Nice people didn’t kidnap little girls. “We just want to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“You’re lying,” she told him. He looked surprised, frowning at her as if he couldn’t believe she’d actually accused him of lying.

“What do you mean, lying?” Now that she got a closer look at her original captor, he wasn’t dressed like one of the soldiers. He was a member of the ship’s crew, and she was old enough to know that meant trouble. The other man wore the uniform of an officer, like the one Don Simon wore. American and British uniforms were quite different, but Miranda was a child of wartime. She knew how to tell officers from enlisted men, no matter the country's uniform they bore. She had seen him before as well, when she carried water for the men.

“You do want him to hurt someone.” Lydia had been very clear on why Don Simon had looked so unwell in Miranda’s dreams. She had also told Miranda how Don Simon had gotten the scars she’d seen in the smoking room. The story had been edited quite a bit for small ears, but Lydia had not lied to her daughter.

“What?”

“How do you know that?” the officer asked, plastering on a smile that Miranda didn’t trust in the least. He looked just like Aunt Louise when she was planning something.

Miranda said nothing. After her Papa rescued her the last time, he’d spent some time explaining how best to escape from kidnappers, or at least to stall for time until her parents could come for her.

“Come now, little girl. You know who we’re talking about. He’s a monster. You’ve seen him, after all. Those claws and teeth are dangerous.” She scowled at him, but kept her mouth shut. She’d been dragged around and slapped by scarier people than this man, and Don Simon needed her to protect him.  
  
_If they hurt you, Miranda, you tell them anything you need to._

She would _not_.

_Brave, foolish child. I know where you are. Keep them talking._

“Are you going to kill him?” Miranda knew from experience with her Aunt Louise that if she asked the right questions, the adults would humour her. At least to a point.

The officer watched her carefully, weighing his answer, but the restless shifting of the crewman told her that he was going to lie. “We will. He’s a very dangerous monster.”

Her Mama had been right. They wanted to capture Don Simon and lock him in a coffin full of silver. She’d seen the marks on his hands and Lydia had explained the harm silver did. These were bad men, evil men. She could see a glint at one wrist and another at his throat. Her mother and father wore silver chains there. She had one around her neck herself. “Aren’t you dangerous?”

Another question that made the officer pause. “Of course not.”

“But you kill people. You’re an officer. You’re going to war.” Miranda tried on the face that usually got her out of trouble with anyone save her parents. “You should be very dangerous.”

_Your father would be very proud of you._

She knew that. He told her so often.

“You’re a very clever little girl, aren’t you?”

“Too bleeding clever by half,” the crewman snarled, examining the various bite marks adorning his hand. “You sure she’s not one of ‘em?”

“I’ve seen her in the sun on the promenade deck.” 

She knew they’d been watching. Don Simon had said so. It still made her uncomfortable. “Why do you want to kill him?”

The officer relaxed slightly, trying on that false smile again. “Well he’s very dangerous. He’s a murderer.”

“But if you kill him, won’t that make you a murderer too?”

That stymied him for a brief moment, and that moment was all it took. None of them had seen the door open, but Don Simon was visible there for the briefest of moments as he reached out, grasping the officer by the chin and the back of his head. A moment later, there was a brief, muffled, _wet_ sound, and the man lay on the floor.

The crewman shrieked, and backed away. It did not save him. Don Simon stepped forward, a knife glinting in one hand - and the man fell to the floor, scrabbling and bleeding from a wound in his side.

Miranda reached for Don Simon, who scooped her into his arms. She buried her face in the scratchy fabric of his uniform coat. “They will not harm you again,” he promised her, moving swiftly out of the room and the dead and dying men he left behind. She did not respond, clinging to him silently.

 _You were very brave, Miranda._ He held her closely as he sped up the stairs and down the passages, time running out no matter how quickly he moved. _Your mother will be very proud of you._

“They’re dead,” she said, words so quiet only he could have heard them.

_They are, and you should not weep for them._

She did not respond, and when he pressed her into her mother’s shaking arms, she turned into Lydia, clutching at her for comfort.

“What happened?” Lydia demanded, holding her daughter tightly. She ignored Ellen, who was quietly tending to a young man in a nearby cot. As far as Ellen was concerned, none of this was really happening, a last effort of Don Simon’s before his ability to cloud the minds of others was swept away by the seas around them.

“There were bad men,” Miranda whispered into the side of her neck. Lydia stiffened.

“They frightened her, nothing more.” Don Simon reached out, claws gently combing through Miranda’s disordered hair. “She fought them, and stalled for time.”

“They’re dead now,” Miranda told her mother, and Lydia stiffened. “He killed them.”

Don Simon said nothing, looking back at Lydia with his chin high and expression empty.

“You killed them? In front of my daughter?” Lydia tried to be angry, to be outraged. He had exposed her daughter to violent death and - 

“It was not my actions which exposed her to such things,” Don Simon told her. That was true enough, but somewhere beneath it all Lydia _was_ angry. At those men, at the circumstances, that they had dared to touch Miranda at all….

“He saved me, Mama.” Miranda clung to her mother, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “They were going to hurt him, but he saved me.”

With that, Lydia could not summon forth her anger. She closed her own eyes, rocking Miranda gently. “What will they discover?”

Don Simon did not ask what she meant. “They will find two men, driven by fear of becoming sick and dying, attempting to form an alliance to flee the ship - and killing each other during an argument.”

“You are certain?”

“They will not find you, Mistress, nor your daughter.”

When she opened her eyes, he was gone.  
  
**

When Asher woke again, he was alone. It took him some few minutes to realize this, as the room was dark and he was too exhausted to lift his head. Eventually he managed to turn over and, as his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could finally see the place Grippen had dragged him to.

There was very little personality to it, though it was much cleaner than the place he had been sleeping. There was nothing to suggest its use as an infirmary, and the furniture consisted of a small dresser, a chair, and the bed. Asher had no idea where the room was, or how far from the docks or his own room, or Grippen’s usual haunts. He could be anywhere.

Time passed as he attempted to think through the fog in his head. He was sick. He remembered that. He remembered the last time he’d been sick, the dreams, the feeling of drowning, the dreams…. Dreams. 

Something tugged at him, telling him he needed to remember something. He struggled with his fuzzy thoughts for a while, before deciding that it couldn’t be terribly important. He needed to get up, needed to be moving, needed to find the creature MacAdam before it found more victims and made more monsters.

Managing to pull himself out of bed was a triumph which did not last. Instead of rising in a dignified manner, he eventually rolled out of bed and landed hard on the floor. The impact was hard, and sent him into a coughing fit, but it didn’t really _hurt._ The coughing lasted for a worryingly long time.

Father Christmas didn’t show up to see what the noise had been, and when his coughing abated, Asher pulled himself to a sitting position. He had to get moving. The shallow wounds at his throat had been bandaged, and his silver chain had been placed over the bandages. The chains were resecured about his wrists, and he discovered that he was wearing someone else’s night clothes.

By the time he managed to get himself to his feet, Asher had no idea of how much time had passed. Reality had asserted itself, somewhat, and he knew he was in no condition to go out into the streets, or even be out of bed for long. Or at all. He was driven, however, to know what was going on and where he was.

He made it to the door, fumbling with the knob, and opened it - MacAdam stood on the other side, mouth and hands smeared with blood, eyes wide and pupils dilated. There were ugly red burns around his open mouth, the skin split in more than one place where that fanged mouth had pressed against Asher’s silver chains.

They stared at each other for a moment before Asher attempted to slam the door. He wasn’t fast or coordinated enough to manage it, and MacAdam burst through, taking Asher to the floor for the second time.

Asher struggled desperately, but MacAdam, despite his appearance of incomprehension, mouth still slack and eyes unfocused, avoided both the chains at his wrists and the one at his throat. 

Pinned to the floor, desperately clinging to consciousness, Asher lost his battle with his lungs again. He couldn’t struggle and breathe at the same time, and the smell of death and decay was making his efforts to suck in air even harder. Dragged to his feet, Asher found himself slung over MacAdam’s shoulder. 

He lost consciousness somewhere between the narrow set of stairs at the end of the hallway and the front door.

**

When the RMS Mauretania arrived in Liverpool, Lydia already had their belongings packed and in hand, ready to go. They were not the first off the vessel, but they were among the first departures. Captain Palfrey and Don Simon would be held up by the paperwork which had seen them on board in the first place, but Lydia’s contract for work was over.

The car and driver she’d arranged for was waiting, and they reached the train station fairly quickly.

“I want you to take Miranda back to Aunt Lavinnia,” Lydia instructed as the porters stowed their bags, “and stay there until I return.”

As this was merely a repetition of her plans, there was no argument. She and Ellen had already had three disagreements over Lydia’s determination to track down James on her own, and everything had already been said; loudly and repeatedly. Ellen loved Lydia, had been with the family for ages. Lydia loved Ellen in return, and the care that she’d always taken for Lydia. That did not mean they were, or would be, in agreement over the way Lydia sometimes chose to live her life.

Miranda had been harder to convince, unwilling to be separated from her mother once Don Simon had pressed her into Lydia’s arms. Lydia had eventually resorted to simply telling her, “Ellen and Aunt Lavinnia will look after you until I or your father come back for you. I am not leaving you, I am simply going to find your father.”

The little girl hadn’t liked it, but she’d finally accepted it. She remained silent and solemn, her mother’s shadow as Lydia waited for the porters to leave. As they finished stowing the luggage, she asked, “What about Simon?”

Lydia glanced down at Miranda with a frown. “He is not far, and he will be helping me look for your father.”

“Will you be safe? Both of you?”

“You’re worried for his safety?” Lydia was surprised. She’d been under the impression that Miranda’s experience with her kidnappers had left her terrified of the vampire.

Miranda nodded slowly. “Can he rescue Papa while people are hunting for him?” Ellen tipped the porters, paying no attention to the quiet conversation behind her.

Sinking to her knees, Lydia drew Miranda into a gentle embrace. “I hope there is no one hunting him now. Even if there were, he would still rescue your father. Don Simon will always look out for you.” Lydia believed it, implicitly. Distance from the event and her outrage at Miranda witnessing multiple murder allowed her to reframe events. 

Don Simon had rescued her daughter from a pair of kidnappers. Yes, Miranda had been kidnapped because men had seen Don Simon with her, but Don Simon had been seeking Miranda at risk to his own safety. She couldn’t hold it against him, much as she deplored the entire business.

“Be careful,” Miranda whispered.

“I will. You be careful too.”

“We will all be careful,” declared Ellen, joining the conversation. “Right now, that means taking our seats, as the train is about to leave the station.”

Lydia found herself staring out the window, looking for Captain Palfrey and a certain large travelling trunk, but saw neither. Sighing, she resigned herself to more hours of travel.

**

Several hours from London, Lydia woke from a light doze to find Don Simon sitting across from her. His military uniform had been shed, returning him to his normal dress. She would be willing to swear that he spent as much as she did on his clothing, if not more. The ability to acquire perfectly tailored clothes while never being able to see the sun was one she could admire.

“You are distracted.”

“I am. You know why.” Lydia glanced over to see Ellen and Miranda peacefully asleep. Unsurprising, given Don Simon’s habits. She returned her attention to the vampire, watching him carefully, wanting to catch every micro-expression that crossed his face.

“I am worried as well,” he admitted. “Wherever James is, I cannot yet make contact with him.” That was a blow, and one of the things Lydia least wished to hear. 

“I had hoped to find some answers at the War Office, or at least find a place to begin looking, but -”

“But you had hoped I would be able to find him more quickly. I am sorry. I have been seeking him since we made landfall. I know that he is indeed alive, and possibly somewhere in London.” His lips quirked faintly downward.

“But?”

“I do not think he knows where he is. I fear he has fallen ill.” Don Simon caught the hand she reached out toward him. “Wherever he is, I do not think the War Office is aware of his whereabouts.”

“Jamie is sick?” It was the culmination of several of her worst fears. His near death experience in Paris had left him with weak lungs. If he had the influenza, even if he survived that, it would most likely lead to another round of pneumonia and there was no guarantee he would survive long enough for treatment to take effect.

“I do not know, I merely suspect.” His cool fingers tightened on hers. “We will find him, Mistress.”

Staring at his pale, scarred face, his slim form bearing a visage that still held the echoes of a very young man, no matter how long dead, should have brought her pause. Don Simon had been dead for hundreds of years, had murdered countless thousands of people to sustain his own existence, and had cold-bloodedly destroyed the only fledgling she knew about. Lydia should be afraid. She should have doubts.

All she could think of was Jamie’ face, the look in his eyes when he’d come up from the crypts in St. Petersburg, the note in his voice when he’d said, “I couldn’t”. Don Simon held a piece of each of them, gained through his effect on humanity to be fascinating, to be desirable. She loved him, even though she shouldn’t. Even though sometimes she did not wish to. Jamie - Jamie held something for the vampire, though she had no idea what. Don Simon certainly risked his own existence often enough in the attempt to save someone who had once vowed to kill him.

“We will find him,” she agreed softly, hope wavering at the thought of her Jamie being in a cot in a ward somewhere, dying by inches but so, so quickly.

“I will find Grippen, and meet you at the home of your aunt.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“I would do anything for you, Mistress.” The soft voice with an accent that was almost forgotten held nothing but sincerity, and she squeezed his fingers again.

“I know.”

**

Asher dreamed, searching desperately for something in the halls of their Oxford home. 

Ellen, Mrs.Grimes, and Sylvie slept around a table with a forgotten pot of tea. Behind one door lay the crumpled form of Brother Anthony and the picturesque, entirely false ruins where the ancient vampire had died. Another door showed him St. Petersburg and the ignition of nine fledgling vampires. He kept looking. He saw Japan and a small horde of the Others they’d found there. 

He watched Lydia, bloodied and covered with mud, scramble from a trench in war-torn France. He saw Miranda dart across a room to take cover behind him, the weight of a pistol suddenly in one hand. He continued to search, opening door after door, none of them holding what he sought, or reminding him of what he’d been searching for in the first place.

Eventually, he found himself in a rocky chamber surrounded by bones, looking down at a familiar pale face, eyes closed in sleep. A familiar gold signet lay to one side beside a bloodied bullet, and clawed fingers were curled in a gesture that was almost beckoning. Don Simon looked so very young, despite his centuries, and Asher remembered seeing the vampire just after his death, young, trusting, and misled.

“Here you are.” Don Simon’s eyes had not opened, but he shivered as he spoke, ‘life’ coming back to the bonelessly sprawled body.

“Here I am,” Asher agreed. “Where am I?”

Yellow eyes opened and Don Simon pulled himself fluidly to his feet. “I don’t know. I’m looking for you, as is your wife. Why are you dreaming of St. Petersburg?”

“Because that’s where things changed,” Asher said. “I was going to kill you.”

“But you did not.” Don Simon watched him, weighing Asher’s words.

“I didn’t. And I still don’t know why. I could give you reasons enough, but -”

“But they do not encompass your decision.”

“No.” Asher frowned. “Why are you looking for me?”

“Because you are missing.” Don Simon was suddenly beside him, cool fingers tracing his face, claws gently grazing his skin. It was easy to forget that the vampire who made so many others of his own kind wary, was barely Lydia’s height. “They sent Lydia a telegram.”

“She thought I was dead?” The thought sent a throb of pain through him.

“Not for more than an hour.” The fingers moved to his throat, heedless of the silver still present in his dreams. “You are very ill, James.”

“Am I?” He tried to remember. “Yes, I am. Influenza.”

“It has killed many people, James. How are your lungs?”

Now that he was thinking about it, he could feel pressure there, and difficulty in breathing. “Not in the best of shape.”

Don Simon smiled, small and amused. “We are aware. Do you know where you are?”

“No.” Asher caught at Don Simon’s hand where it lingered against his scars. “I was… being looked after by someone. Then MacAdam came.”

“MacAdam?”

“There’s a … creature here. Like the Others. But not.” Asher was having trouble focusing. “Grippen thinks it’s because she bit someone with the influenza.”

Don Simon tugged gently at Asher’s hand, fingers that could fold steel being consciously careful of his human frailness. “Grippen?”

“Yes. He must’ve killed someone in Leigh when he took me.”

“James, you are very unwell. You need to rest.” Don Simon steered him to sit on the ledge where the vampire had been sleeping. “I will find Grippen and we will find you.”

“Grippen wants me to survive,” Asher told him, vision becoming fuzzy. “He wants me to be a vampire.”

Don Simon’s hands stilled on Asher’s shoulders. “What?”

“Offered to bite me. When you and Lydia were on the ship. Keeps offering.” Asher was eased back until he was lying down. 

“I assume you told him no.”

“Don’t want to be dead. Besides, I read your letter.” Asher let his eyes close, feeling the throbbing in his head fading slightly.

“My letter?” One of Don Simon’s hands rested on his forehead, the coolness welcome.

“To Irene.” Asher tried to ignore the heavy feeling in his chest. “‘The world does not need another vampire’.”

There was a very long pause before Don Simon withdrew his hand. “Rest, James. Concentrate on staying alive.”

Asher knew he was by himself, resting on a stone slab somewhere in his dreams. He couldn’t find it in himself to worry about his state of health out in the waking world. Lydia was coming. Don Simon was searching for him.

For the first time in years, he did not feel alone.

**

Lydia only escaped her Aunt Lavinnia’s surprised and relieved hysterics by thrusting Miranda at her and beating a hasty retreat. She felt bad about forcing Miranda to play distraction, but sacrifices had to be made. She resolved that to make up for her own cowardice, she would buy Miranda pony, if necessary.

It still took at least an hour for her to leave the house. She had used that time to remove anything incriminating from her luggage and place it about her person. Her silver chains never left her, but the silver nitrate ampoules and injector, the pointed hawthorne stake and small hammer, the small gun with the silver tipped bullets were all tucked into a handbag or her coat. Luckily, it was damp enough to excuse the coat, as it was certainly not cold enough for such clothing.

She walked two blocks before Don Simon appeared beside her.

“I have spoken with James,” he said.

Lydia stopped dead in her tracks. “Where is he?”

“He does not know.” Don Simon took her arm and guided her along the street. “He is also quite ill. Influenza and pneumonia, and he also appears to have been kidnapped by some sort of creature. Because things were apparently not complicated enough as they stood.”

“What happened?” She clutched his arm, anger and alarm making her grip tighter than she would have attempted on another human.

“I’m uncertain, but it appears as though Grippen kidnapped him from Leigh. I looked about, and there was a gruesome murder there, of a prisoner named Paul Greuer. His basic description matches that of James, and doubtlessly Grippen found someone similar and disfigured them when he killed them. Leaving that corpse in place of James, he effectively kept any search from having been made, and caused that telegram to be sent to you.” Don Simon’s soft voice did not waver, but Lydia knew he was not happy.

“I will _kill_ him,” Lydia declared. “How dare he?”

“He has apparently offered to make James his fledgling. More than once.”

Lydia dropped Don Simon’s arm, horrified. “No!”

“Sensibly, James has said no each and every time. His resolution is doubtless what protects him. You cannot make a vampire of the unwilling.” Don Simon paused, turning to face Lydia directly. “Something has gone very wrong in London, Mistress, and Grippen is in it up to his thick neck. We must start our search with him.”

“Also end with him. I want him dead, Simon. He kidnapped Miranda, and he is trying to kill Jamie.” Lydia had never been so angry in her life.

“I would prefer it if you would not murder anyone, although there are few I would miss less than Grippen. For all of the same reasons, and a few more beside.” He took her hand, drawing it again to the crook of his elbow. “Come, let us converse with the Master of London.”

**

“I’d hoped you’d been killed,” was Grippen’s greeting. They found him easily enough, or Don Simon did, waiting for them outside an address in Chelsea that Lydia couldn’t quite focus on. Someone’s resting place, then.

Lydia snarled at him, batting at the hand Don Simon was trying to use to keep her from attacking Grippen on sight.

“An’ it’s good to see you again too, Missus Asher,” Grippen added, unmoved by her open hostility. “I’m assumin’ you’ve come for Jimmy?”

“Do you have him?” Don Simon asked, having to lay hands on Lydia to keep her from going for the stake in her coat.

“I do not.” Grippen wrinkled his nose. “Worthless excuse for a doctor got his sorry a- um, got hi’self killed, and Jimmy was taken.”

“Taken _where_ ?” Lydia demanded.

“Wapping, somewhere. Twere at the docks when the creatures came out. Killed one, but t’other fled. Come along, I’ll show you what started it all.”

Lydia was successfully distracted from her unaccustomed bloodlust by the pair of bodies at Mary’s final address. While she examined them, Don Simon had Grippen go through the entire story again, one ridiculous mishap after the next.

“When I went to check on him, Ransom was in pieces in his kitchen, an’ there was no sign of Jimmy. Twas too close to the day for me to start lookin’. I planned to go to Wapping tonight, but then I realized someone was lookin’ for me, an’ decided to stay at home.” Grippen was again sprawled on the sofa, one boot on the small table before it, and the other propped on the arm. Don Simon stood over him, disapproval almost tangible. 

Lydia knew the two vampires disliked each other, but it was the first time she’d seen it so obvious. They were polar opposites, the large, common doctor and the slim hidalgo. In physicality, in belief, in how they made their way through their existence as dead creatures, predators of the living, they could not be more different. Yet they were both willing to search for her Jamie, to keep him alive - albeit for very different reasons.

“He was taken by this… creature. He is very ill, and yet still alive. I thought it was a mindless killer with no discretion?” Don Simon’s tone said exactly what he thought of this dichotomy.

“Not sure. It ran away when burned by Jimmy’s silver, an’ the stories don’t have the Others runnin’ from much. That it killed Ransom but carried Jimmy away? Not sure what it’s thinkin’. Didn’t think it could.”

“We have to find him. Quickly.” Lydia finished her examination and stood, samples tucked away into her handbag. “Wapping, you said?”

“I’ve a car,” Grippen told her. “We can be there quick enough.”

An hour later, Lydia knew precisely why James felt that vampires shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Ensconced in the back of the large car Grippen had acquired from somewhere, she watched as he drove the streets of London with reckless disregard for anyone or anything else, his headlamps dark, and utilizing a turn of speed she thought might actually turn her hair white. Don Simon had relaxed bonelessly into the front passenger seat and seemed not at all bothered by Grippen’s frankly insane method of operating a motor vehicle.

She was relieved and mildly disbelieving when they finally came to a screeching halt just a few yards from the reconstructed docks. She wasted no time in letting herself out of the car, barely restraining herself from throwing herself to the ground and kissing it with relief. “Where do we begin?”

“Right here,” Grippen said. “Just down there is where we ran into them. You can still see the bloodstains. We’ll take a walk.”

Lydia glanced at Don Simon. 

“It is as good an idea as any,” he said.

They’d been walking through the docks for almost an hour, thoroughly ignored by any humans they came across, when Don Simon suddenly stopped. “James is here somewhere. Nearby.”

Grippen moved to his side, as if tuning into whatever had made Don Simon so sure.

Lydia ceased taking an interest in the proceedings when hands closed on her shoulders and dragged her away from the vampires. The creature had made no sound, and when she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out.

_Scream. No._

It was nothing like Don Simon’s voice, soft and crisp. It wavered, as if it were a radio transmission from somewhere just at the edge of its range. It sounded almost like a child, forming words without the development to enunciate them properly.

It had Don Simon’s strength, however, and it dragged her away swiftly enough that the vampires did not immediately notice what had happened.

_Take you. Safe._

Of all the things she might’ve thought of this situation, ‘safe’ did not even make the list. She couldn’t even struggle, much as she wanted to. It was and wasn’t like the blurring of perception that she was familiar with, or the submission of will she’d seen them use. Instead, it was an unrelenting pressure, forcibly keeping her from doing _anything_.

It pulled her up over its shoulder and ran - moving so swiftly that it made her nauseous. It carried her for quite some distance before pushing through a door that was cracked and swinging on its hinges and dropping her to the ground. The pressure that had kept her silent and unmoving lifted as she hit the floor.

Bruised, nauseous, and frightened, Lydia rolled over and pulled herself to her knees, only to freeze. The smell of the place was the first thing to hit, the stink of rotting meat and mold mixing with the familiar stench of illness. That wasn’t what caused her to freeze, however.

In the dim light from the broken door she could not see clearly, and she fumbled for her spectacles. Not that they'd help much with the darkness.

Her captor was on its heels, staring just past her left ear. It looked like a man, almost. Face slack, mouth open, eyes dilated and unfocused, it also looked like a monster. There were sharp teeth crammed into that wet mouth, and no sign of breathing. Its claws were long and sharp and looked more for stabbing than actual clawing. Even against the monsters she was used to, it looked somehow wrong.

_Die._

She scrambled backward, knocking into something in the dark. That something groaned, and coughed, wetly. “Jamie!” 

Even with the lack of light in the room, she’d listened to that cough often enough in Paris to know that she’d found her husband. She turned, reaching for the huddled form in the darkness, only to have hands clamp unforgivingly around her forearms and drag her away.

_No. Die. Now._

“If you’re going to kill me,” she told it, trying to kick backward, “then _do_ it, or let me go to my husband!”

 _No._

There was frustration discernible in the child-like delivery. “What do you want!” Lydia tried to work one hand into the pocket where the silver nitrate ampoules rested.

 _Die._

The hands abruptly released her, and she staggered away, drawing the ampoule and injector from her pocket.

  
When she turned, it stood perfectly still. Waiting.

“Oh. Oh!” She stared at the thing that had once been a man. “You don’t want _me_ to die.”

 _Yes. No._

It stood, waiting, eyes focused on nothing.

“What happened to you?” She pressed the ampoule into the injector with trembling fingers.

 _She hurt me._ The image of a pretty woman with dark hair showed itself to Lydia, slightly blurred.

“Mary bit you,’ Lydia agreed, fingers trembling as she tested the injector. “But you didn’t become a vampire.

 _Hurt me. Can’t think._

It wavered, fingers flexing. 

_Always hungry. Alone._

“She took your humanity, and gave you… what?”

 _Pain_.

Lydia took a careful step toward the creature, who visibly fought to hold itself still. 

“You want me to kill you.”

_Stop hurt._

“And you took James -?” 

In a bit of reflected light from the broken door, she could see the burns on its face. It had once been a handsome face, though you couldn’t call it that now. Whatever Mary’s bite had done, it had robbed MacAdam of more than his humanity. 

“What happened?”

_Different hurt. Think. Not think._

The silver. Something about the silver had broken MacAdams mind free, if only partially. “You took him because you thought he could kill you, but he was too sick.”

_Hungry._

Lydia didn’t want to think about the feeling that came with the word. While the injury remained, perhaps the effect of the silver would fade more quickly than the wound it caused. “Are you losing yourself again?”

It didn’t respond, unfocused eyes not tracking her movements, even as she knew it remained perfectly aware of her every move. Gingerly, she took hold of its wrist. “I’m sorry.”

_Hurts._

Biting her lip, she leaned in, setting the needle to the major vein in its throat. “It won’t hurt for much longer.”

She plunged the injector home and leaped backward, moving to shield Asher as the thing screamed. It might be a fairly quick death, but it would not be painless. She didn’t think it would mind, as long as the pain eventually stopped. Of course, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t kill her in its last moments, or kill James.

As the creature fell to the floor, shrieking and writhing, Don Simon tore the door down entirely, stepping into the darkened room. He moved almost too fast for Lydia to follow his motions, but she lost track of him as Grippen arrived on his heels.

Grippen hit the floor, reaching out to snap the creature’s neck. 

Don Simon didn’t even slow, catching Lydia in his arms.

“Mistress, you are unhurt?”

She clung to him for a brief moment, finding comfort in the contact. “It wanted to die - and Jamie was too sick.”

Don Simon released her, dropping to his own knees beside Asher. “Come, we will take him to a hospital.”

“I’ll fetch the motorcar,” Grippen offered, before vanishing. 

Lydia ignored him, tugging at Don Simon as the vampire pulled Asher into his arms, carrying the larger man easily out of the dank, noisome hole where the creature had been hiding, and into the slightly fresher night air. “Let me see him.” 

Don Simon allowed her to make a swift examination as they waited for Grippen to arrive with the car. He bore Asher’s weight without the faintest sign of strain, and Lydia would normally have marvelled at the casual display of strength. She had no attention to spare for it, however. “He’s definitely got pneumonia,” she said, voice wavering slightly.

Don Simon said something in Spanish that she didn’t catch, but from his tone it was just as well.

“But he’s not dying yet,” Lydia added. “He’s been sick for days, and if the influenza hasn’t taken him yet, I think he will recover.”

“Small comfort, if the pneumonia takes him in its turn.”

Lydia shook her head. “I will not think on that. We need to get him to a hospital.”

“Grippen -”

“Later,” she said, fingers skimming Asher’s face, too relieved at having him within reach to restrain herself. “Oh - MacAdam. We’ll want the body.”

“I will see to it.”

Grippen’s car skidded to a halt in the street, and Don Simon took Asher with him into the back seat, forcing Lydia to take the front. The horror of Grippen's driving might not have been meant to distract her from Asher’s condition, but it certainly worked as such.

**

The hospital had few beds, but the staff were willing enough to part with some of their supplies, as per Lydia’s demands and with Don Simon’s silent encouragement. James was placed on a bed and Lydia’s newly acquired medical expertise in the treatment of those with the influenza and her familiarity with pneumonia were put to work.

“I want him out of here as soon as possible,” she told Don Simon. “We cannot afford to have him exposed to any other illnesses while he is so weak.”

“I will see to it.”

See to it as he’d seen to the body of the unfortunate MacAdams, now locked away in a cool room until Lydia had time to get to it. See to it as Grippen had seen to a few key people in the Department, now corpses themselves.

“If it’ll keep you from attemptin’ my death, I’ll do it, Missus Asher,” he’d said, though quite obviously humouring her. “Jimmy’d never forgive me if you’d not survive tha’ attempt, and I’ve no intention of dyin’ again.”

Lydia still had quasi-murderous plans for Grippen, but he’d given her a packet of information on who might know about vampires in the Department. He'd also promised to look into who might have noticed the Ashers and their proximity to both Cochran and Armistad. For that she’d let him live, for the moment.

**

Asher found himself lying in the bed of their Oxford home, the windows open and filmy curtains blowing in a warm breeze. He was comfortable, though if feeling as though an anvil were weighing him down. Beside him, Lydia was curled up in sleep, one of her hands clasped in his. Miranda was asleep at the foot of the bed, having crept in during the night as she sometimes did, unwilling to go back to her own bed.

Don Simon was perched on the edge of the bed, watching them.

“That’s more than a little disturbing,” Asher said, surprised when his voice came out strongly.

“I can hear your thoughts and walk your dreams. How much worse can it be to watch you sleep? Especially as you are only dreaming of sleep.” Don Simon smiled, something sweet and astonishingly young in the expression.

“Still.” Asher lifted his free hand, extending it to the vampire. “Did you find me?”

The cool fingers interlaced with his, and Don Simon shifted his attention to their clasped hands. “We did. You are mostly shed of the influenza, but you have pneumonia again. You have been in the hospital for several days. When you wake, Lydia wishes to take you home.”

“Home. Can we go home?”

“The War Office has been informed that you were found in terrible shape, chained in the ruins of the docks by a mad man. Someone recognized you in Leigh, and German agents removed you from the camp in order to get information from you… and they were spooked by the murders in the docks and ran, leaving you there.” Don Simon glanced over at Lydia. “You have been issued a medical discharge, thanks in part to Grippen’s efforts. Your wife would have killed him, had he not attempted to make good his own part in this mess.”

“Home,” Asher repeated softly, looking down at Miranda’s sleeping face and tightening his grip on Lydia’s fingers.

“Will you stay this time?” Don Simon’s tone wasn’t quite right, attempting casual, but not quite achieving it.

Asher looked back up at him, tightening his grip this time on Don Simon’s fingers. “You loved her, didn’t you? Irene, I mean.”

Don Simon nodded, his own gaze on where Asher still held his hand.

“Was it her, or her humanity?”

“Are those two separate things?” Don Simon sounded distant, as if he were removing himself from the emotional content of the conversation. Once, Asher would not have believed him capable of any emotion, much less something as complex as this.

“Constantine showed me Timothy. I don’t know if you saw that dream. He showed me a great deal of your time in Paris.”

“Did he?” Don Simon was still, unmoving as the corpse he was, hand still cool in Asher’s. “There are many things about that time I would not choose to share.”

“I think I can see why.” Asher was weary, exhausted, but the dream was soothing, and he focused on Don Simon. “You aren’t much like your fellow vampires. Maybe Lady Ernchester. You’re not human anymore, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel things.”

“Vampires can feel. Often those feelings are not very deep, or entirely focused on the deaths which sustain us.” Don Simon remained unmoving, reminding Asher of a wax figure, or detailed china doll. He looked like a very young man; attractive, fit, and so very pale and drained of the colour he’d had in life.

Don Simon had been very young when he died and, in the memories shared by Constantine, had so obviously regretted much of what he’d done. At least in the beginning, he'd still been almost startlingly human. Asher’s thoughts were starting to drift, and he dragged them back to the conversation. 

“You love Lydia, and Miranda.” They both knew it was true. Vampires might not be physically able to engage in acts of love, but some of them could _feel_.

Don Simon nodded again, the gesture jarring in its repetition, especially given his normal stillness.

“And me?” A question he’d never asked, never wanted to ask, never _needed_ to ask. The answer had never made any real difference in his own feelings. Vampires were murderers who fed on the weak and the unprotected. They needed to die to keep humanity safe.

Don Simon would give up his existence for Lydia. Nearly had, on more than one occasion. He’d called to her for help, knowing that Asher might ignore his pleas. He’d also thrown himself into danger for Asher, however, and for Miranda. This, Don Simon’s motivations and Asher’s own reactions to them, was something that Asher could no longer force himself to ignore.

Don Simon’s yellow eyes flicked up, lips quirking ruefully. “I do. You knew.”

“I did know. I didn’t want to.” Asher frowned. “I’m still not sure that I want to.”

“And that means…?”

Asher sighed, feeling that anvil still pressing heavily against his chest. “Come home.”

“... what?” For the first time in their acquaintance, Asher saw Don Simon entirely surprised.

“You need a safe place to rest. Come home with us.” Asher managed a smile. “You won’t be feasting on the neighbors, or so I’ve been told.”

Don Simon’s surprised expression did not fade, and it made him look even younger than his normal disguise. “Vampires don’t -”

“Then be different. You’ve broken enough rules.” Asher felt his eyes slowly closing, despite his determination to finish this conversation. “Lydia - _we_ want to know that you're safe. Come home, Simon.”

As he drifted back to true sleep he felt something brush against his forehead, and heard that soft voice say, “Perhaps, for you both, I will.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Due to a series of interesting and somewhat out of control events, I did not get to do as much research as I had planned. The basic history should be sound enough, just squint past any inconveniently incorrect details, if you would be so kind.


End file.
